


The Same Question

by S_J_Ace



Series: The Show Must Go On! (A SaiOuma Phantom Thief AU) [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Action, Aged-Up Character(s), Anxiety, Comedy, Crimes & Criminals, Enemies to Friends, Existential Crisis, Extremely Slow Burn, Friendship, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Heist, M/M, More of the DRV3 cast is in there but i don't want to clog tags, Phantom Thief AU, Romance?, Slow Burn, World Travel, also includes my take on DICE
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 78,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_J_Ace/pseuds/S_J_Ace
Summary: After Detective Shuichi Saihara encounters mysterious thief Kokichi Ouma for the first time, a game of cat and mouse ensues as both men ask themselves the same question. Why exactly does the elusive phantom thief do what he does?---The Louvre heist was as good as over. He’d gotten away with it already.Kokichi wondered if any of the heists to come would be at all helpful in the war against tedium he had been fighting his entire life.“If I have anything to say about it, yes they will be.”Kokichi realized he was fidgeting with the bandage on his finger.…Good bye, Paris.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki & Momota Kaito & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Series: The Show Must Go On! (A SaiOuma Phantom Thief AU) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523087
Comments: 361
Kudos: 350





	1. After Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic dives a bit deeper into the mental and emotional well-being of the characters than my other ones. If you think some stuff about mental health may be triggering, please check the bottom of each chapter for warnings!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DICE Regroup in a cafe after robbing the Louvre.

Kokichi Ouma had always found it strange how he could sit in a room full of people yet feel utterly alone in the universe at the same time. 

The thought occurred to him once more as he sat among his crew in a little hole in the wall cafe tucked in the shadows of the city of lights, and it was very much out of character. The scenario Kokichi described to his crew, as they drove away from the Louvre in the beat up looking SUVs they had secretly loaded up with stolen plumbing parts, was that of a birthday party. They were all twenty something Parisians who had gotten out of bed extra early to take their friend out for a birthday surprise. How fun! How quaint! How unsuspicious!

… but in reality it was just an excuse for Kokichi to try and shake off the weird mood he was in with decadently sugary crepes. He had pitched it to DICE as a sort of celebratory feast of a heist well done, but honestly Kokichi had never felt so bored after stealing something in his whole life. 

For some reason or another he had felt exhilarated on the plane ride in, but as soon as he got to the actual stealing part everything felt all samey and routine again. He even let Queen make off with a painting of some big dumb flowers that he wanted, hoping that it might spice things up, but now it was just lodged under the seat cushions next to a bunch of fancy looking elbow pipes. 

Ugh.

Now that he really thought about it the painting would probably make escaping Paris even more boring… News outlets wouldn't run the headline "Pipes and toilets stolen from the Louvre," when they could run the headline "Priceless painting of pretentious looking flowers stolen from the Louvre." It'd make it easier to sell the plumbing because interpol would be keeping their eyes on the fine art black market instead of Craigslist offers for scrap metal.

Well maybe that was a good thing. Kokichi didn’t want them to get caught selling the pipes, after all. DICE was a bit of a scrappy group from the start and their heists had been decreasing in profitability recently for the expense of spectacle. Bishop told him that their accounts were doing fine and they had enough cash saved up for some frivolous heists, but Kokichi could do math too and thought Bishop’s accounts were slightly suspect. 

They were probably just telling him that to make him feel better. Maybe they had noticed that something was off with him. Maybe they were planning with the rest of DICE to overthrow him as the boss and put someone less stupid and predicable in charge instead.

No, Bishop couldn’t do that to him. They weren’t a good enough liar. None of them were good enough liars. Kokichi knew them too well. For instance, right now he knew that Bishop and Ace were having a conversation that Rook was waiting to butt in on, Spade and Club were talking about Mario Kart and Spade was acting like she agreed with what Club was saying even though she didn’t, Queen was pretending to be doing some important coding but was definitely on reddit, King was planning to shove some whipped cream in Rook’s face as soon as he finished his crepe, and Hearts and Jack were leaning in the corner of the four person booth they had all crammed into like a clown car with their legs on top of everyone else’s with Hearts on top of Jack’s lap about to fall asleep while Jack was very noticeably not noticing even though she definitely did notice because Hearts’ boobs were right in her face. 

There was so much lying happening, so much play acting, yet everything added up into an equation that seemed all the more sincere. DICE were genuinely celebrating another successful heist. For them, nothing was wrong. 

That was so bizarre.

Everything seemed wrong to Kokichi. He felt trapped. He felt like they were all trapped. How could he ever know that his people were genuinely happy when to his knowledge people had to question everything that they found themselves doing. Take, for example, the crepe he had eaten moments ago. He had eaten it in an odd way where he started from the bottom of the crepe’s fold and ate outwards, preserving a perfect ring of outer crepe rind. It didn’t really enhance the taste in any way, seeing as the crepe had a completely even cook, but Kokichi had insisted it did as he ate it regardless because he knew that was in character of the person he had established himself to be. He was the kind of guy who just casually committed food crimes. It’s not that it didn’t still bring him joy to see the faces of his crew scrunch up in disapproval, but it made him wonder if the rest of them realized the same thing about their own behaviors. That they acted a certain way and thought a certain way because of a tacit, invisible social code of who they should be and how they should act towards others, regardless of their own intrinsic motivations.

It made it hard to tell what lay behind their faces. If they were really happy behind the smiles. 

They had to be happy, right?

Yeah, if he looked up happy in the dictionary he’d probably see a photograph of King shoving whipped cream in Rook’s ear. Like he was doing right now. 

Everyone was safe and having a good time, and yet Kokichi felt like he was watching it all happen from a far away place.

Was Rook really angry as they slugged King in the arm or were they just pretending to be angry because they knew that was the part they had to play in the overall scene of this social interaction?

Kokichi glanced at the other DICE members’ faces. Spades and Clubs were still having their own conversation about a Blue Shell conspiracy theory, but everyone else seemed to be laughing at or pretending not to laugh at King. The thought occurred to Kokichi that he should probably try to match their facial expressions, but upon inspection he found that he was already grinning full force.

Weird.

He let the lie lay flat.

Immediately everyone turned to look at him. That was normal, he was their boss. If he wasn’t happy it meant something was wrong. Except it was also weird. There used to be times when Kokichi was very young where he could be in the middle of a room full of people say anything he wanted at the top of his voice without being heard. He wasn’t the same person on the outside of his head as he was on the inside of his head and he knew that and he used it to his advantage. But would he ever be able to escape it?

…

…

Okay! That was a series wrap on overanalyzing shit and having memories! Time to not think about any of that ever again!

“I’m bored of crepes.” He whined. “We should go somewhere else.” 

Instantly everyone’s face lit up with excitement. “We should go somewhere else” had become a sort of ritual phrase that now meant “Convince me what our next heist should be.”

Everyone started talking at once.

“There’s this casino-” 

“The Taj Mahal! We should do the-”

“Fort Knox! I wanna-”

Kokichi raised his hand and the clamoring voices stopped instantly. 

“One at a time, shortest to tallest, and not so loud.” He nodded slightly to the woman sitting on a stool behind the cash register. They probably didn’t have to worry much about her. It appeared that she only understood french when she took their orders earlier and now she seemed to be checking her phone disinterestedly. They had also chosen to sit in the booth furthest from the register so really there was very little chance she would overhear them say something that would get them in trouble, but you could never be too sure.

“Well, boss. Most esteemed mastermind. You lovely bastard you,” Spades, the shortest of DICE save for Kokichi himself, schmoozed exaggeratedly. Kokichi could tell she didn’t really have an idea but wanted to draw out her turn as long as possible because Clubs had an idea and she was teasing him like an annoying older sister. She was probably going to pull Buckingham Palace. “I have the best idea. The most creative. The most innovative.” Buckingham Palace was so ridiculously easy to get into that there was entirely no point in wasting a trip to Britain on it. There was some drunk guy who just wandered into it and found the Queen’s bedroom. Twice. “It’ll be tough, but with our unique set of skills I think we’ll be able to pull it off.” So when someone didn’t have an idea, to pass they’d say Buckingham Palace. “And it’ll be well worth it. Our names will go down in history.” And then Kokichi would give a funny excuse why they weren’t going. He should probably start thinking of one now while Spades was still blabbering. “The biggest heist of all time.” Hmm… How about… Yeah that was a good one. “Home of her royal majesty herself, Buckingham Palace!”

Everyone groaned as if this weren’t an entirely predictable twist to Spade’s monologue.

“Uggh, Spade you know I can’t go back to Buckingham Palace.” Kokichi groaned. “Last time I was there I saw Prince Phillip dressed in a corgi fursuit being tugged around by the queen on a leash. I’m still trying to erase the image from my mind.”

That got an easy guffaw from Ace and a smattering of giggles from everyone else. Not bad, but he’d come up with funnier before.

Jack giggled longer than the others. Kokichi knew that meant she was waiting for everyone to quiet down so she could one up him with her own bit.

He raised an eyebrow. “Something to say, Jack?”

“Ooh… Well… I was just wondering if that’s the real reason we can’t go back.” 

She paused for a second as if expecting him to “yes, and” her, but he decided to let her fend for herself on this one. 

“I mean. What was it you said to  _ your _ husband on the plane?” Shit. “Didn’t you tell him you wanted him to beg like a dog?” How much of that conversation did she hear? “I don’t know, sounds like Prince Phillip might’ve awakened something in you.”

“Awwww,” King crooned, “Boss Baby’s first fetish.”

Kokichi wasn’t really bothered by this implication beyond the fact that, judging from the smattering of snickers, it was getting better laughs than his original comment. He needed to swing this.

“Puhlease. Who would be into pet play when feral animals are clearly the sexiest creatures on the planet?”

“Is that why you spend so much time trying to look just like one?”

“Why Jack, I’m flattered you think I look just like the sexiest creature on the planet, but I’ll have you know I’m married.”

Hearts was nice enough to take the bit. “To who?”

“Not that plane detective?” Bishop prodded. Or maybe they said “plain” detective? Maybe it was a pun. Good on you Bishop.

“No, heavens no. I’m married to Ratatouille himself.” Kokichi’s rather strangely eaten crepe was about to work out pretty well in the grand scheme of japery. He unfurled the remaining ring of crepe edge and put it around his wrist. “Want proof? Here’s the ring. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Gorgeous!” Queen enthused. It didn’t seem like he was really paying attention, with his eyes glued to his laptop, but Kokichi appreciated his support nonetheless.

Jack frowned. “Isn’t the rat from Ratatouille’s name Remmy?”

“You’re right it’s not Ratatouille, it’s Ratatouille’s monster.” Rook chimed in, definitely quoting a tumblr post.   
“No, no, no, I’m not married to the rat, I’m married to the concept of Ratatouille.” He made a romantic gesture. “The one we hold dear in all of our hearts.”

“Oh, of course, of course.” Ace tried to nod sagely, but the effect was ruined by the big grin on their face. Ace had a hard time not laughing at everything, especially their own jokes.

Club had been pouting this whole time. With this whole thing about Kokichi being into dogs diffused it was probably time to hear out his suggestion. Kokichi was about to say as much, but before the mirth died down long enough to change the subject, Queen interjected.

“Uh, boss.” He said, turning around the laptop he had been fiddling with the whole time. “Speaking of rats… There’s one on the news making himself a loose end...”

On the screen was a distressed looking headline in french accompanied by a picture of the detective himself, Shuichi Saihara.

Kokichi’s heart leapt.

Then he noticed that it leapt.

And that his hand had begun moving to fiddle with the bandage on his finger.

__ He stopped himself just in time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Asian character indirectly associated with word "rat" (see edit)  
> I've been working on this fic for a while! I hope y'all enjoy reading.
> 
> 12/12/2020 Edit: I just wanted to note that after being educated by other asian-americans online I've made efforts to remove and edit around references to asian characters using the word "rat" in most of my published writing on this account because a lot of poc have expressed being uncomfortable with the term due to white americans using the word as derogatory racial slur in some parts of the country. Although I am asian american myself, I had never really run into this term being used in that way in my own life (rats actually have positive associations in the irl asian community I'm apart of because of the year some of my family were born in chinese zodiac), so I didn't think about the broader implications when I used it in my writing. No one has really confronted me about the scene included in this chapter specifically because I am not a very popular writer, but I've decided to change the warnings to reflect the fact that it can make some poc uncomfortable and have edited out as many instances as I could without necessitating me to completely rewrite parts of my old work. Please know that it is never my intention to make other poc feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or even just slightly bummed out with my work.
> 
> TLDR; calling asian people rats makes asian americans uncomfortable. Because the comfort of other poc is important to me, I edited some of my work and changed the warning tags on this chapter because of a problematic scene.


	2. After Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi Saihara gets off a flight to Paris to meet with his greatest enemy... Himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little more intense...

Shuichi Saihara had always found it strange how quickly his body could turn on him.

He had been fine, on the plane untangling his seat belt while alarmed chattering spread like wild-fire throughout the plane.

He had been fine, explaining to a frazzled flight attendant and captain that no he was not in fact married to the gentleman who jumped out of the plane, who was, as it turns out, an internationally wanted thief.

He had been fine, making the call to 112 and explaining to the respondent that yes he knew all the police cars were busy with a high profile break-in and that the incident he was reporting was, in fact, related to said break-in.

And yet, when he sat down, alone on a bench in front of the Paris-Charles De Gaulle airport surrounded by the crisp night air the thought crossed his mind that DICE had robbed the Louvre by now. That they had gotten away, and it was all his fault. All his fault.

And then Shuichi pulled out his phone and dialled the number of his very good friend Kaito Momota because he was having a panic attack.

*Beeeeeep….*

Shuichi knew he was having a panic attack because it felt like the world was ending for no good reason.

*Beeeeeep….*

His breathing got shorter. An immense pressure built up behind his eyes, trying to force tears to leak out from underneath them. His hands locked in a vice grip around his phone.

*Beeeeeep….*

Three words repeated in his head over and over again like a broken record.  _ All your fault. All your fault. All your fault. _

__ *Beeeeeep….*

If Shuichi had any presence of mind right now, it might occur to him that there was, in fact, a reason behind this panic attack. That he’d been privy to and partially responsible for so many high stakes cases in his career that the idea of failure made his imagination sick with all the horrifying outcomes his mistakes could cause, including the ones that had actually come to pass. A man looking at him with hatred in his eyes as the police car door shut on him.  _ All your fault _ . A fourteen year old girl hanging from a noose.  _ All your fault _ . The sound of a gunshot in an alleyway.  _ All your fault _ . The phrase was like the slightest twitch of a finger that could pull back the trigger of a gun loaded with every horrific thing he’d ever seen, heard, or felt. Everything hit his brain in one compact shot and Shuichi didn’t have time to respond in any way except try desperately to avoid going into shock.

It felt like the world was ending and when the world is ending you call Kaito Momota.

*Beee-*

*Click.*

“...”

“...”

“Shuichi?”

Kaito’s voice sounded groggy and confused over the phone. 

“...”

“You there, man?” 

Shuichi tried to answer in the affirmative, but he couldn’t seem to force himself to speak. God, he was an idiot. He should’ve just texted. Kaito probably hated him anyway.

“What’s up, dude? Something the matter?”

No, Kaito is his friend and things are fine and he just needs to calm down right now.

“Hello?”

Okay. Okay. He was just trying to talk the wrong way. His throat was tensed to accommodate his heavy breathing instead of human speech.

“Shuichi, is that you breathing weird into the receiver?”

Yeah, okay, see? He was breathing weird. He should… stop that…

“Ok, dude, whatever’s going on I’m gonna need you to not asphyxiate. Here, breathe with me. Inhale. Two... Three... Four... Five... Exhale. Two... Three... Four... Five...”

Oh yeah. Shuichi was definitely breathing too fast right now. Panicky fast. Like close to hyperventilating fast. The kind of breathing fast that started squeezing liquids out of your face if you weren’t careful. Not doing that was like the first thing on the not having a panic attack checklist but somehow it was always the one Shuichi forgot first.

“Inhale. Two... Three... Four... Five... Exhale. Two... Three... Four... Five...” Kaito repeated the rhythm and Shuichi could hear his friend matching it with his own breathing as Shuichi struggled to do the same. 

Inhale. Two... Three... Four... Five... 

As Shuichi counted in his head he felt almost every part of his body loosen to some degree.

Exhale. Two... Three... Four... Five...

With the exhale the pressure behind his eyes began to dissipate. 

Pretty soon Shuichi was breathing in a way that the kids these days would call normal. While breathing normally was something human beings needed to do to not asphyxiate, it was quite shocking how physically helpful it was in preventing Shuichi from crying on a bench in front of an airport in Paris.

He could still feel his heart pounding in his head, but at least his breaths weren’t fighting to outmatch its volume. 

The pounding went away by about the third exhale. He felt his power of speech return after the fourth.

“... Sorry.” He murmured into the receiver on his cell phone.

“Nothing to apologize for man. What’s going on?”

“I. Uh. Am having a panic attack in front of the airport for some dumb reason.”

“Gotcha gotcha gotcha.” Some shuffling, as if Kaito was repositioning himself on the other side. “I bet it’s not as dumb as you think man. You wanna talk about it, or do you want a distraction?”

A woman bleeding out on the floor, her face eternally frozen in a scream. _ All your fault _ . 

“... A distraction is good. Just having, like, intrusive thoughts right now.” 

“Yeah, okay. Gimme a sec to make myself sociable, it’s pretty late here.” Shuichi heard some more shuffling through the speaker. He’d probably woken Kaito up.

“Sorry.”

“It’s all good man.” Kaito shuffled around some more. “Hmm… Oh yeah, I had a question at dinner, no one was around to answer.”   
“Oh, is Maki out again?” Maki was Shuichi’s friend, Kaito’s partner, and a professional bodyguard. She stood next to people and looked intimidating in a suit for a living. Sometimes she stood next to Shuichi and looked intimidating for free.

Maki holding a pipe, the end coated in blood.  _ All your fault _ .

Inhale. Two... Three... Four... Five... Exhale. Two... Three... Four... Five...

“Yeah, that’s our Maki Roll. Busy as a bee.” There was a scritching sound over the phone that could’ve been static or Kaito itching his stubble. “Since I was cooking for one last night I made Saturn-ghetti.”

Shuichi wrinkled his nose instinctively. “Ew.”

Saturn-ghetti was what Kaito called regular spaghetti with one big meatball in the middle. It sounded tame enough now that Kaito made the big meatball on his own, but when he first introduced Shuichi and Maki to the concept it was in their college’s cafetorium and he had just taken all the meatballs from a regular spaghetti and meatball dish and mashed them all together into one big ball in the middle. Shuichi had quite literally seen murder scenes less gruesome. 

“Hey man, I don’t judge Maki Roll for dipping fries in shakes or you for dipping bread in soups.”

“Dipping is normal Kaito. You’re supposed to dip carbs. Everyone does it. You’re the only person in the whole world who mushes meat.”

What about that guy who used a meat tenderizer to mush his victim’s faces in…

“Why would you want to eat tiny meatballs?”

“So you can eat them with the spaghetti.”

“Can’t a guy just have a separate meat and noodle experience? You can’t even process the flavor if you eat both at once!”

“They’re supposed to go together. Otherwise, you would just make a meatloaf.”

“Well I don’t have a recipe for meatloaf Shuichi, I have a recipe for meatballs.”

“Do you mean meatball, singular?”

“Yes, I do. Glad we can both agree that’s what I mean since it’s the best way to eat spaghetti. Anyway, back to my problem.”

“I thought this was the problem.”

“Saturn-ghetti is not a problem it’s an art. My problem was that when I was making the noodles I realized that I had forgotten what that metal bowl thingy is called. You know, the one with the holes in it.”

“If only that had stopped you.”

“Yo, I’m serious! I have no idea what it’s called and it’s been driving me insane all night.”

“Do you mean a strainer?”

“No, I know it strains stuff but like there’s a different name for it. Like. It sounds like cauliflower? Except not because it’s not a vegetable.”

“A colander?”

“Yeah, that’s it! Jeezus Louizus that was driving me crazy. You’re a lifesaver man, where would I be without you?”

“Uh probably googling ‘another name for noodle strainer.’” Shuichi didn’t really see how knowing what the metal strainy thing is called could save a life. Maybe if you were getting murdered and had one chance to write down the name of the culprit and you knew their name was the same as what that metal strainy thing is called but you forgot what it was. Wait, no, in that scenario you still got murdered. God, what was wrong with him? Did his brain always have to jump to murder right away?

“Nah,” Kaito said with conviction. “I wouldn’t be half the man I am without my awesome sidekick around to back up.”

At the familiar phrase, Shuichi felt his heart warm and the tight ball of anxiety in his gut loosened in turn. “Sidekick,” was admittedly an odd term of endearment for a friend of almost ten years, but if you knew Kaito you knew it was a word that meant something to him. To him, having a sidekick means having someone who you backup no matter what. Even if they make mistakes or aren’t sure of themselves quite yet. Because you believe in them. No matter what.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without you either, Kaito.” He sighed. “Not that that’s saying much…”

“What do you mean by that?” Shuichi could hear the frown in Kaito’s voice.

“Ugh. Nothing. Or. It’s just.” Inhale, two, three, four. Remember to breathe. “It just feels awful to be having a freak out like this again. I haven’t had a panic attack in like a year. It just feels like sometimes that I’m doing okay and I’m not still some stupid teenager still freaking out because I feel a little guilty about a guy being in prison and my parents not being around because of me and then I have a panic attack at an airport and it feels like I’ve made absolutely no progress at all in dealing with any of my anxieties at all and even though I’ve tried so hard to change who I am I’m still the same pathetic kid I’ve always been.”

Keep breathing. Exhale, two, three, four.

“Hey man, it’s okay. We all get those days sometimes. You feeling up to talking about it now?”

“Which part?”

“Like, why you were freaking out. It’s usually not for no reason, even if it seems like it.”

“Uh.” Yeah okay. Breathing was really helping to clear out his head. He was feeling more in control of his general brainspace than he was a second ago, which was good. “Honestly it’s not the worst thing that could’ve happened. No one died. All that happened was the Louvre got robbed.”

“Yeah, okay that doesn’t sound that bad.”

“But on the other hand, it was the  _ Louvre _ that got robbed. It’s a national treasure here. The whole country is going to blame me for it.”

“Wait, sorry, what’s the loo in French again? I know it means the toilet in the UK, but does it mean something else in French?”

“No, not the loo. The Louvre. The famous museum.”

“Oooh, yeah. Right, right, don’t listen to me I’m tired.”

“Oh, sorry-”

“No, no, keep going. Listening to my sidekick’s problems is more important than catching forty winks.”

“Uh. Right. So I’ve been tracking DICE for a while now, right?”

“Uh-huh, the clown guys, I’m familiar.”

“And I know Maki thought I was crazy, but I knew that they were going to pull this job on the Louvre, right? And so I get on the plane and this weird guy sits next to me. He breaks my seat and pretends to be married to me so that the flight attendant upgrades us to first class.”

“What the hell?”

“Is that weird? I couldn’t tell if that was weird or not.”

“No yeah, that’s shady as shit. Do I need to come to Paris and tell him to step off for you?”

“No, uh, you’d probably have a hard time finding him, because it turns out? He was the thief the whole time?”

“Whaaaaaat.”   
“Yeah, apparently I was just shooting the breeze with a criminal mastermind and I’m such an idiot I should’ve jumped out of the plane after him without a parachute.” Like that guy they found impaled by a lamp post...

“Hey man that’s on him, you can’t blame yourself for the existence of criminal- wait did you say he jumped out of the plane?”

“Yes.”

“Like, while you were in the air?”

“Uh, yeah, through the emergency exits.” 

“Duuuuude that’s super dangerous. I don’t know how high up you were but the pressure change could’ve caused all of the oxygen to suck out of the cabin.”

“That’s… Alarming…”

It also brought up some interesting questions. Shouldn’t the pilot of the plane have been able to tell that there was a life threatening pressure change in the cabin? Or did DICE do something to tamper with the equipment? Did they manage to jump out at an altitude that wouldn’t be lethal to everyone in the cabin through chance or calculation? In the latter case that might add to the traits profiling the group, the ability implying at least some form of higher education. What about other sources of information? Maybe they bribed the pilot? He’d need to be interviewed. Shuichi would need to make that suggestion when the police got here. They’d probably also want to do a forensic analysis of the drug that was used on the passengers. There’d most likely be some trace of component that they could utilize to locate possible business contacts or country of origin for the thieves. Knowing their flight information was also a great advantage, it meant they could track down several forms of ID. Even if they were faked it would allow for higher scrutiny on future flight paths if Interpol decided to pursue this investigation seriously. Toilets wouldn’t really keep their attention, most investigators at the Smithsonian were more concerned about the mammoth than all the stolen picture frames, so unless DICE made off with something more valuable this time around Interpol probably wouldn’t waste time sending agents over. Then again Agent Ishimaru was the agent in charge of the DICE case now and he was very thorough when it came to his investigations. If Interpol showed up, maybe Shuichi would get a chance to look at the next note when it was sent to them, like he had in America...

“Hey, am I supposed to be able to track everything it is you’re muttering to yourself there or is that just for you?”

“Oh, uh,” Hghk he was muttering out loud. “Just for me, sorry. Stuff about the case.”

“Oh, yeah, okay cool, cool, cool.” Kaito paused for a moment. “Wish I could be there to back you up in person, man. Hurts my soul as a man and your friend that I didn’t support you all the way on this Louvre thing when you brought it up before.”

“What?” Oh, he meant that thing that Maki said about him needing a vacation. “No, no it’s understandable. I was running on like… fifteen minutes of sleep and fourteen cups of coffee when I told you two about my theory.”

“Man, I just want you to know that no matter what we’re always here to support you. Even if we get it wrong sometimes we’re just worried you know. Also, you need to sleep more.”

Shuichi frowned. “You make it sound like you and Maki are my parents.”

“Nah, parents suck. We’re your friends. Much better.”

Shuichi laughed at that. “Yeah, okay, fair.”

Was that a siren Shuichi heard? Maybe?

“Kaito I think police are gonna be here soon. I gotta go.”

“Oh, yeah, okay. You feeling better now?”

Shuichi paused to take mental stock of himself. He tried to remember how he felt before he came outside. Things were fine, he was just doing some damage control. By all means this incident was a break in the case rather than the wrecking ball to his career his more panicked thoughts were trying to convince himself of. He was fine. Things were fine.

Except…

“Uh. Yeah, mostly. I guess maybe I’m just tired?” Yeah he was definitely tired. His eyes felt like they’d just spent the last ten years trying to watch the wind on a mountain peak. “I dunno. Logically I know that everything is fine and I’m doing alright, but that part of me that feels like I’ve failed and I’m going to mess everything up forever is still there no matter what I do.” 

“Hey man, you know what I always say. There’s nothing you can do about the past, but you will always have the power to change what’s happening right now. You’re my sidekick and a brilliant detective to boot, you can do anything.”

“Right. Yeah. You’re right.” It didn’t really matter that DICE had gotten away with the heist on the Louvre. Plumbing parts and paintings were replaceable. What Shuichi’s investigation had always been concerned with was the amount of unregulated capital DICE was accumulating and what exactly the shady organization was planning to do with it.

“Now tell me what it is you wanna do right now.”

“I… I’m gonna track down those thieves.” That would have to be the next step of course. There’d probably be some evidence at the Louvre if the police would let him take a look… 

“Heck yes you are!”

“And I’m going to figure out what they’re up to.”

“Hell yeah you are!”

Shuichi laughed a little at Kaito’s unwarranted enthusiasm, but he let the mirth drained from his expression when he looked up to see the police cars he heard before pulling into the lane in front of the airport. An officer stepped out of the first one and Shuichi stood to wave her over.

“Ah, the police just got here. I gotta talk to them.”

“Fuck yeah you do!” Kaito exclaimed with the same level of pep talk energy he’d said every other encouragement with. “Go get ‘em Shuichi!”

“I will.” Shuichi said, not entirely sure.

“You will.” Kaito said, completely certain.

_ I will. _ Shuichi repeated to himself as he hung up and made his way over to the police officers. It seemed like there were three cars. That was kind of odd considering the 112 responder said it’d be two cars. Wait, was that last one a news van?

_ Shit _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Description of a Panic attack. Canon-typical violent imagery. Description of gross food crime.  
> It's true when they say authors draw a lot from life experience... Saturn-ghetti was a real thing that happened to me they just didn't give it a cool space themed name... just meat...


	3. After Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi and crew decide what comes next.

Parisians are in shock after the theft of Dutch painter Van Huysum’s priceless, centuries old painting “Vase of flowers in a niche” from the musée du Louvre just this morning. The following interview was conducted with M. Saihara, a private eye known for the recovery of a stolen mammoth skeleton from an american museum, called the Smithsonian, just a few weeks ago.

Journaliste: What can you tell us about the robbery at this time?

M. Saihara: It is the working theory of the Paris Police force that the culprits behind the break in at the musée du Louvre are the internationally wanted criminal group known as DICE. These police sketches have been released of two members of this group. If you spot anything or anyone suspicious, please report it to the Paris Police Prefecture.

Journaliste: Are these the same criminals who robbed the Smithsonian in America a few weeks ago?

M. Saihara: I believe so.

Journaliste: Is it likely that the robbers are still in Paris?

M. Saihara: Very likely. 

Journaliste: What are the chances that the stolen piece will be reclaimed?

M. Saihara: We don’t have enough information to determine that at this time. Just know that the Paris Police Prefecture is doing everything they can to return it to the people of Paris.

Journaliste: What of the criminals? Is it likely they will be caught?

M. Saihara: If I have anything to say about it, yes they will be.

Journaliste: M. Saihara, do you know if-

M. Saihara: Je suis désolé Mademoiselle, I must be going now. The Paris police will most likely release a more elucidating press statement when more information is received. Bonne journée.

Journaliste: Merci, M. Saihara.

Kokichi Ouma exited out of the google translate tab he’d opened up on Queen’s laptop. At the end of the article were two police sketches. Jack’s didn’t look all that accurate (thank god for contouring) so Kokichi supposed they could all breathe a sigh of relief on that front. Now, the sketch of him on the other hand…

King whistled and Kokichi realized the taller DICE member was leaning over his shoulder to peer at the screen in front of him. “That detective really got a good look at you.”

Kokichi scoffed, not wanting to raise unnecessary alarm. “Please. The nose and eyebrows are all wrong.”

“He really got down the bird’s nest though.” King pointed out, reaching to muss up Kokichi’s effortlessly stylish coiffure. 

“What’d I tell you?” Kokichi preened. “No living creature could forget a face like mine.”

“You’re right,” King quipped back “It’s a face that haunts nightmares.” 

“A face only a mother could love.” Rook chimed in.

“And yours gave you away after just one look!” Chirped Bishop.

“Hey maybe that Saihara guy wants to try lovin’ it instead.” Queen interjected suggestively

“Okay, okay, can it everyone,” Kokichi raised his hand to silence the spontaneous roast. “I’m thinking.”

“Club,” He pointed at his second shortest croney.. “Where are we heading?”

Club, who to his credit had been extremely focused on being polite and waiting for his turn and had definitely earned a heist after mixing ten liters of knock-out drugs in the back of a plane, exclaimed, “Theresthiscasino-” like he had been holding his breath, “-andtheyjustgotthesefancynewlightfixtures and, and, alsothesevintagearcadeconsoles-”

“Sounds cool.” Kokichi’s tone didn’t give away the fact that he had no preference as to where their next hit was and only had getting out of Paris in mind. “Where’s it at?”

“Uh. Like, Reno. Which is in Nevada. I think.”

Kokichi frowned. “Nevada? Is that like a country in South America or something?”

“Nah, it’s one of the United States.” Informed Ace, the only member who ever got genuinely interested in sight-seeing and therefore the only one who looked at maps that weren’t building schematics.

Kokichi squinted at that. “We were just in the states. You know I’d rather jump off a building than rob the same place twice.”

“Boss, you know, actually Nevada is further from D.C. than France is from Ukraine.”

“What? But aren’t they in the same country?”

“Yeah, the U.S.A. is just broken like that.”

Ugh. Weird. Maybe Kokichi should also look at a map of the world some day.

“Fine, okay, I guess since you twisted my arm, we’ll have to go to Reno.” If Kokichi remembered correctly telephones calling from France started with the area code of one of five regions. Paris had the code of 01, but if they were on the western outskirts it may be 02, or 03 on the eastern outskirts. Then the rest of the phone numbers were eight more randomly assigned numbers. “Let’s head out. Queen, do you still have that program for a spam call bot you showed me three months ago?”

“Uhh maybe, but I’d need wifi for that.”

“Okay.” He stood up, pulling out his phone to do some quick googling. “We’re gonna split in two groups. Red smiles with me in group one, we’re driving out to the Tours Val de Loire Airport down south. Make sure you have the right cover story IDs, it’s a three hour drive so prepare yourselves. Bishop, you’re going to have to do my makeup in the car. Everyone else will be in the other van with Queen, group A. After you’ve found a source of wifi, you five will be calling in some false reported sightings. Not too many, but enough in specific places we won’t be going that it’ll misdirect the police. I’ve written down the phone number rules for France on this napkin. If it seems like we’re in the clear you can overflow the system if you want to. Message us with progress updates and we’ll confer about flights and cargo control after group one has reached Tours Val de Loire. Group A will take off from the Orly airport and we’ll meet at Reno-Tahoe International in a few days. I've sent a message in the groupchat with everything I’ve just said, so don’t worry if you missed a detail it’s all there verbatim. Let’s get rolling.”

“Yes, Boss!” The members of DICE said with varying levels of conviction. 

Kokichi handed Queen the napkin he had written on as the rest of DICE started to stand up from the four seater cafe booth they’d all crammed into like a clown car. He grabbed another napkin that he would use to write the next note to interpol. What would the six layers of cipher be this time? What about a set of random symbols equated to numbers that would represent the coordinates of katakana strokes in a one unit box which would then translate to english letters in a polyalphabetic cipher which would reveal the riddle? Wait that was only five layers. Eh, he could work on it in the-

Kokichi saw detective Saihara’s photograph on the monitor out of the corner of his eye and his swirling thoughts came to a momentary hallt.. It seemed like the picture had been taken hurriedly outside of the Paris de Gaulle. It was blurry and a little dark. All Kokichi could really see was that his shirt was half untucked and his hair was so messy you could hardly tell he had eyes. Kokichi found himself wishing he could get a good look at those eyes. Just to tell what the detective was thinking. 

Not that it mattered. 

Kokichi closed the computer and slid it over to Queen as he exited the booth.

As he handed it over, Queen gave him an odd look, like he had noticed something. “Where’d you get that cut, boss?” he asked.

“I punched through a window with my bare hands, just to feel something again...” Kokichi replied, putting on an exaggerated grimace.

Queen gave him a look that said ‘what did I expect’ and followed the rest of the gang out of the shop.

The Louvre heist was as good as over. He’d gotten away with it already. 

Kokichi wondered if any of the heists to come would be at all helpful in the war against tedium he had been fighting his entire life.

“If I have anything to say about it, yes they will be.”

Kokichi realized he was fidgeting with the bandage on his finger.

…

Good bye, Paris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Flippant mention of death  
> Hope you enjoyed this first chunk of chapters! There is definitely more coming. This fic is a real long one I'm not sure if I want to update weekly or monthly yet because I've still got some work to do on it.  
> If you want to see more from me, here's my tumblr: https://s-j-ace.tumblr.com/ (I draw sometimes)  
> Please leave a comment if you have time I love hearing from people who've read my fics :)


	4. Reno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DICE conduct a typical heist. Kokichi is delighted when a certain detective shows up.

Kokichi Ouma stood on the rooftop of the Silver Legacy Resort Casino in Reno Nevada laughing maniacally to no one in particular. At least, no one as of yet. 

In his hand, he held a remote control for two of those… giant metal grabber arm machines. Except they were used for construction. (Named after a bird… CRANE. They were cranes.) Except for now when they were being used to rip two very expensive crystal chandeliers out of the lower levels of the building he was standing on. He felt the world shake as the cranes raised their arms in celebration of acting outside of their intended use, each holding up a chandelier like they were about to put earrings on the building he stood upon.

Seconds later, the rooftop access door burst open. Kokichi watched as detective Saihara walked into the light of the evening sky. He looked tired and a little disheveled just like how Kokichi remembered him, but when he turned to see Kokichi, still cackling away, something in his eyes changed. They became harder. More determined somehow. 

The detective started walking toward him. "Stop right there!" He shouted like he was some sort of real-life action hero, and Kokichi felt excitement skyrocket within him.

"Uh-uh-uh." Kokichi tutted, feeling his glee slip onto the expression hidden by his mask. "I should be saying that to you, Detective. After all…" God this was good. Kokichi held up the remote control in his hands. "I could just… drop one of these chandeliers. I don’t need both. Just one press of a button is all it would take to shatter these babies on the pavement."

Saihara hesitated for a moment and his eyes glanced to the side of the building. Kokichi deduced from the movement that Saihara had been trying to see if there was anything down below the chandeliers that could get crushed. Kokichi knew it was nothing but some too-fancy cars, but Saihara decided his best bet was to stay where he was.

"What are you playing at?" His eyes were focused on Kokichi again.

The thief blinked innocently. "Who, me? I'm not playing at _anything_. I take my life very seriously, thank you very much." He gestured to the chandeliers. "I just need some help making a decision."

"A… decision?" The detective asked warily.

"Yup!” Kokichi felt like he needed this moment to last longer than he knew it was going to. “I need to take one of these chandeliers home with me to decorate our evil lair, but I accidentally took both! So I'll let you have one back if you help me decide." 

He turned to the chandelier dangling on the left and hummed as if considering it. "Now I like this one because it's very sparkly. But this one…" he turned around and fiddled with the controller for the right chandelier so that the hundreds of tiny crystals would hit against one another. "Is more jangly."

Saihara looked like he was going to be sick as the chandelier clattered on.

"Well, frankly I think you shouldn't have either if this is how you're going to treat them…"

Oh... that's what Kokichi was hoping he'd say.

"Wow, I think you're right. If I really wanted a chandelier for the lair I wouldn’t treat it so roughly... You really are a smart one, Mr. Detective." He shrugged. "Guess I won't take either."

Kokichi watched Saihara's moment of realization morph into a look of subsequent regret as he pushed the button that released the cranes' grasps. 

Kokichi was a little disappointed when the detective ran for the side of the building, as if the detective could do anything to stop a one-tonne chandelier from speeding hastily to a shattering death, instead of doing the sensible thing and chasing after him, the culprit. Although, as Kokichi began to make his escape he realized that Saihara was searching the ground below. His expression was familiar and Kokichi realized that it was the same look of concern he had witnessed on the detective’s face when he held his hand back on the plane. 

Kokichi, forgetting about the fact he was in the middle of a high stake escape attempt, took a second to look down at his finger. The bandage was gone now. He’d thrown it away the day after in a weird mood. There was still a thin scab on it, a strange reminder of his physical existence. He remembered how careful Shuichi had been when he’d gotten hurt. 

Kokichi felt his heartbeat crescendo suddenly, but the starting of the engine in the helicopter behind him drowned it out. 

Oh yeah… He should… Get in that...

Was Saihara looking for casualties? Of course, there wouldn't be any. Kokichi had made sure of that. It was the number one rule of DICE, you know. No killing. Just because obviously killing people is bad. Not that Saihara knew that. 

He supposed that was working to his advantage.

By the time the detective turned around to face him again, Kokichi was stepping into the escape chopper as Hearts sat inside flipping the switches needed to initiate takeoff.

When Saihara got to the end of the rooftop, Kokichi was hanging out from the side of the getaway chopper about a decameter over the building. Kokichi realized he was still laughing and stopped. The detective probably couldn’t hear him over the beating of the propeller, so there was no point to it. He settled into a billboard-style grin and looked down on the detective standing alone on the rooftop. Strangely enough, the expression on the detective's face had seemed to shift from surprise to calculation in the moment Kokichi had turned away. Suddenly his expression lit up and he turned around to run to the rooftop door. 

“So he figured it out huh…” Kokichi muttered to himself as the detective disappeared from the rooftop. How smart of him to realize that Kokichi’s ploy was the distraction for this particular rendezvous with grand larceny. 

“Did you see his face when I dropped the chandeliers?” He crooned to Hearts, not letting any concern over how the remaining members of DICE were fairing show in his demeanor.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it was delicious,” She called to him over the sound of the propelling blades. 

The thief resumed his cartoonish cackling, watching as the detective's silhouette grew further and further away.

“Hey!" Hearts called back again after they had gotten a good distance away from Saihara. "You might wanna tuck in there, boss, I think the american police are arriving with their cartoonishly militarized long distance weaponry.”

“Nah, I think I'll flap around in the wind a bit,” Kokichi joked as he hopped into the chopper and started forcing the hatch closed. “I’ve got that ‘becoming swiss cheese’ part of my bucket list to fill out.”

“Aww, boss you don’t have to do that.” Hearts was humoring him again. “You’re already a snack.”

“I know,” Kokichi managed to close up the side and it suddenly became a lot easier to hear everything inside the cockpit. He walked over to buckle into the co-pilot seat and shifted into a huge grin and a dramatic pose. “I’m simply scrumptious.”

“Yeah, sure ya are." She said without looking at him, eyes fixed on the skies ahead. "Where are we landing this thing again?”

“The car’s parked at that hospital we scoped out with the helipad. We just gotta land there and go through the vents.”

“Ugh, you and your vents.”

“They’re very efficient! Besides, you have no right to complain. You get to put on a disguise and walk around normal after the 4th floor. I gotta scrunch up and fit in the rolling cart.”

“And whose fault is that?”

He should probably keep this conversation going for 2 ½ minutes.

“God’s, he’s jealous of me.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s the guy who blew his cover by flirting with a detective.”

“Eh, same difference.”

"No, you can't be God. God is a lesbian."

"I never claimed to be God, just a being of equal if not greater power who took the old God’s place. Way to contribute to the bury your gays trope, Hearts."

She snorted. "Boss, you're a white boy in a clown mask. No offense, but if lesbian God saw you she'd smite on sight."

Kokichi could probably argue that he was an ambiguously pale Asian in a clown mask seeing as he was found in an alley in Japan, but he decided that wasn't what he wanted this conversation to be. "Then at least I'll finally be brought to justice."

“Being born a clown is one thing, but I think your real crime is your unnecessarily convoluted plans." She huffed. "Why can’t we just drop the chopper in the woods?”

Kokichi frowned. “Because we have to return it, remember?”

“Since when do we return things? Do you want us to return those massive remote control cranes we left back there?”

“Well of course not!” Although he felt rather indifferent on the matter, Kokichi shouted angrily and threw the remote he was still holding into the back of the chopper. “We stole those from that Togami Corp building. Their CEO makes like a billion dollars every day, he can come get his own damn cranes.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Hearts replied, barely responding to his outburst. “But it’s not like the hospital people wouldn’t be able to find the helicopter if we left it in the woods or something. Also, there’s less cops in the woods; which I would say is a plus.”

“Come on,” Kokichi huffed, going back and forth on whether or not to shift out of this persona or not. He went with the latter and smoothed out his tone a bit. “It’d be harder to close down the hospital for an investigation than it would be to secure the perimeter of the dinky forests they have out here.”

Hearts groaned. “Ugggh. Fine. I’ll crawl in the stupid vents.” She frowned down at her pristine white uniform. “The quarters in those stupid arcade machines better be enough for my dry cleaning bill.”

“This one’s not about the quarters Heartsie, it’s about the real gamer life.” Kokichi may have been raised by video games, but he wasn't as into playing them as Clubs was nowadays. He'd beat still anyone any time in a versus game though, because he was just that much of a pro gamer. Or maybe because he was kinda good at predicting what he'd be challenged to do and was also extremely good at memorizing gaming manuals.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever." Wow, Hearts was really out here oppressing gamers. "You’re the boss."

Kokichi made a face and decided he also wanted to oppress gamers. "Well, I mean, it was Clubs' choice."

"I know." She suddenly perked up a bit. "Hey, speaking of choices... The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo is opening its last exhibit next week-"

"Hey!" Kokichi interrupted. He thought about covering her mouth, but then remembered that she was driving a helicopter that they were both in. He let his hands settle into a gesture of emphasis instead. "You can't pitch during the getaway! It's not fair to the salt of the earth folk that're still down there pilfering the seventies."

"Come ooon, Boss! My thing's got a time limit, and there’s this rug-"

"You know the rules." He scolded. 

A timer went off in his brain.

Kokichi turned away, pulling out his phone to text the ground crew that Saihara was probably closing in on them around now. They’d probably have liked him to tell them earlier, but Kokichi wanted to keep them on their toes after a maddeningly easy break-in. As a bonus, sending them the text let him shun Hearts while she sulked. 

This had been fun, he thought privately, more fun than most heists. Never a dull moment, it seemed, with the good detective around.

As he hit send, Kokichi wondered if Saihara would follow him to Cairo too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: I can't think of any? This chapter is pretty light. Let me know if you need something tagged!  
> Ok, so I've figured out the update schedule that I like! I'll be uploading 1 to 3 chapters every Monday and Thursday at around 5pm PDT. I have material written out until May and material planned out until July-ish.  
> Next few chapters will be heists in different cities, and some other stuff happens too...


	5. Cairo Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaede helps Shuichi make use of his contacts to take the next steps on his investigation.

[Log of Text Messages from Kaede Akamatsu’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey Shuichi! How's it going? I haven't heard from you in a while. I keep forgetting I'm a human person and not a piano machine while I'm on this tour lol.

From: Shuichi! :D

Hi Kaede! I'm sorry! I forgot to check in on how your tour is going, probably because I've been kind of busy myself. How are you?

From: Me

No need to apologize silly 

I'm doing ok

Just craving human interaction that isn't a graceful hand shake or an approving nod rn 

Hey if you've been busy that means you're working another case, right? 

From: Shuichi! :D

Haha yeah I guess.

Or at least I'm trying.

From: Me

👀

You wanna talk about it or is this one still top secret?

From: Shuichi! :D

Uh

Well

I guess there's no client or victim to protect with this one

And there's nothing really stopping me from talking about it

But it's not that interesting to be honest.

From: Me

You're talking to a girl who is on her phone rn to avoid playing hoity toity with a bunch of rich people who like dressing up fancy more than they actually appreciate music :///

Anything is an improvement tbh

From: Shuichi! :D

Haha ok

Well

So like I've been tracking some thieves for a while now.

From: Me

Oooh is this like the Novoselic case?

From: Shuichi! :D

No it's more like a series of robberies than one big robbery.

From: Me

The intrigue,,, 😲😲🤔🤔

From: Shuichi! :D

Anyway it's just a group of thieves

They just robbed this casino and it's a little frustrating

Because I looked at the security tapes and they just kind of…

Walked in…

And the thing about these guys is that they all dress up like clowns

So like it’s literally just eight clowns on the security tape coming in and picking things up and leaving and there’s other people in these videos but no one even looks at them twice????

From: Me

Ffff that’s pretty funny…

From: Shuichi! :D

Hmm.. I’d probably have found it more funny if the owner of the casino hadn’t been crying and shaking me while I watched it. They dropped one of the chandeliers on his car or something.

From: Me

What??? Chandeliers????

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah, the boss clown dangled these chandeliers off the side of the roof to distract me while these rare videogames were being stolen. Then he broke them when he thought his crew could get away.

From: Me

How is that not interesting??? That’s super intense Shuichi!! It makes me want to play movement three of Moonlight Sonata...

From: Shuichi! :D

Is that the really fast one

From: Me

Yes!!! :DDD

I’ll make a melomaniac of you yet!

From: Shuichi! :D

Does this mean you’ll stop making fun of me for getting a C in music appreciation third year

  
  


From: Me

Oh yeah the real reason we broke up lol

From Shuichi! :D

Haha yeah.

Uh, anyway. With the thieves.

I know they're going to land in Cairo in a few days but I don't know what they're stealing.

From: Me

Hey! Rantarou's going to Cairo tomorrow!

You want me to see if I can get you a ride on his jet?

From: Shuichi! :D

Oh no you don't have to do that

From: Me

Yeah, but I'm going to

Unless you really don't want me to but I think that you do so...

From: Shuichi! :D

I dunno

That would be very nice

I'm a little low on a travel budget and I'm in Reno Nevada right now

From: Me

Oh huh where's that

From: Shuichi! :D

In America, like eleven hours away from where you are

From: Me

So? Rantarou's a trust fund baby he could afford the detour

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah but also like

I'm pretty sure he hates me?

From: Me

Whaaaaat

Rantarou doesn't hate you

Last time you saw him you literally helped him track down all twelve of his missing sisters

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah but I just get the vibe that he doesn't like me

From: Me

Shuichi you have social anxiety

\---

From: Me

Hey you don't hate my friend Shuichi do you

From: Avocado Hair

Hmmm…

I don’t want to be mean

From: Me

Yeah you don’t >:/

From: Avocado Hair

But I thought he was a little suspicious when I first met him…

Don’t get me wrong, Shuichi’s nice and seems reliable enough

But also he’s your ex and I don’t trust exes of my friends just on principle

From: Me

...

From: Avocado Hair

Listen obviously I think Shuichi is cool now

But also it was kind of sus when he was just creeping around your shows without introducing himself…

From: Me

I invited him to those! >>:0000

From: Avocado Hair

Yeah, I know that now

He’s a nice guy alright? Really, I do owe him one

Or twelve hah

From: Me

Great! You’re picking him up from Nevada tomorrow

From: Avocado Hair

I'm doing what now

From: Me

From: Avocado Hair

So Nevada, huh?

\---

From: Shuichi! :D

Yeah but also sometimes I'm right when I think people hate me

Having social anxiety does not make that not true

From: Me

I set everything up :)) he says you're a cool guy and he'll call you when he lands in Reno

From: Shuichi! :D

Oh

That's very nice of him

From: Me

Shuichi Rantarou owes you like 12 life debts

From: Shuichi! :D  


Finding missing persons is my job, it’s hardly something to owe a life over

From: Me

Shuichi it was 12 missing persons 

My mans Avocado lost track of twelve whole sisters and you found all of them and now you think he's capable of hate??? smh 😔

From: Shuichi! :D

I'm sorry okay?

From: Me

You don’t need to be!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: None that I can think of, let me know if you need something tagged!  
> This chunk of chapters are from Shuichi's perspective! Some of these chapters will be texts like these because I need to convey information but I don't want to write from perspectives other than Kokichi and Shuichi's


	6. Cairo Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi encounters DICE in Cairo, learning from his mistakes in Reno.

Shuichi Saihara found himself, one week after the heist in Reno, on practically the other side of the world. He was blending in with the scattered crowd of tourists circling around the new exhibit at The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, Egypt. As he looked into the wide-eyed, gilden face of a newly dug up sarcophagus, Shuichi struggled to convince himself that this wasn’t a complete waste of time. Interpol and the Boulaq Police Department certainly seemed to think it was... 

Back in Paris, Interpol hadn’t ended up giving Shuichi access to DICE’s next encrypted letter of intent. Instead, after Shuichi gave his testimony to the Paris Police and the investigation was essentially wrapped up, it seemed like Agent Kiyotaka Ishimaru decided to make an appearance just to have the pleasure of yelling at Shuichi about how many protocols he would've just broken if he were actually beholden to the employment of any law enforcement agency. 

… okay that wasn't a fair characterization of Agent Ishimaru. He was a nice enough guy. He just wasn't as disillusioned with the authoritarian reality of national militias given power by systems of government forged when people still thought eating your own vomit cured smallpox. One time he gave Shuichi a juice box, and some cookies his husband made, before chewing him out, so that was pretty nice. Although maybe that was only because Shuichi had just gotten lightly stabbed by an internationally wanted drug dealer…

Regardless, Agent Ishimaru was far from pleased that Shuichi was “performing acts of covert vigilantism  _ again _ ,” despite the fact that Shuichi had absolutely no idea DICE was even on the flight and therefore his reactionary investigation didn’t include anything illegal, such as stalking, that would be classified as unlawful vigilantism without the backing of the appropriate law enforcement agencies. 

When Agent Ishimaru was done giving a speech about Shuichi’s naivete, he ordered him to get off the case. Luckily for Shuichi the Paris Police thought he was with interpol because of this exchange, and they let him look at security tapes and flight records from the two closest airports. He’d been able to deduce their arrival at Reno, but wasn’t able to figure out what DICE’s mark would be until the heist was already under way. He’d just barely been able to stop them from stealing every single vintage game console from the Silver Legacy Resort. 

After looking at tapes from the Reno-Tahoe International airport too, Shuichi had been able to deduce DICE’s next destination was Egypt, but Egypt was a country and had a lot more national landmarks than Nevada did and honestly Shuichi didn’t even know where to start looking for possible burgleables. Rantarou, a friend of Kaede's who was nice enough to give Shuichi a ride to Cairo, had asked him to check out the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities first. 

Apparently Rantarou's family could trace parts of their bloodline back to old money European families which had partaken in the awful rich people trend of the 16th century where they would just rob graves in Egypt and eat parts of mummies. As a result, they had a bunch of artifacts that didn't belong to them, so Rantarou often made trips to Egypt to return as many as he could. Right now a lot of those artifacts were getting packaged to be shipped to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, because the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities was due to be superseded by it next year. He was off somewhere mixing with Museum staff while Shuichi took stock of all the possible entrances around the exhibit. 

The museum was rather crowded, and as a couple walked up behind him, Shuichi suddenly felt that he was very obviously blocking the view of the sarcophagus display he was in front of. He muttered an apology and moved away, turning around to look at a vase closer to the corner rather than the center of the room. Like most of the artifacts on display it was in a glass case, which Shuichi had noticed seemed to be of the make and model of the kind rigged up to a silent alarm system of some sort. If the cases were opened, the guards in the security booth near the front of the museum would most likely be notified. Although, the exhibit pieces in the cases themselves didn’t seem of much note to Shuichi. There were, of course, priceless artifacts held up on stands or splayed out on ornately embroidered mini-rugs inside the cases, but none of it quite seemed to fit DICE’s MO. Maybe he could look into the other exhi...bits….

Shuichi’s train of thought trailed off as he noticed that on the other side of the vase he was looking at stood a young woman in a headscarf who he could tell was giving him a weird look. 

Shuichi’s inner voice made a noise that would have sounded like, “Hghhhhhh” if he were speaking out loud.

Was he in front of something again? Did he have something on his face?

Okay maybe she wasn’t looking at him and he was just being weird.

His gaze flitted up to momentarily take in the heavily makeuped face and he instantly found himself locking eyes with the very familiar dark purple irises of a complete stranger.

Shuichi did a double take as he realized that this was not, in fact, a young woman.

Wait, did he really know that? Maybe he had just assumed the thief was a guy. Shuichi squinted. How do you ask an internationally wanted thief their pronouns?

“What pronouns do you use?” Ah okay, like that. Thanks for nothing internal filter.

“His majesty/His imperial highness,” The thief replied automatically as if he already knew what Shuichi was going to ask them and had remarks prepared. “Rat/rat bastard are also acceptable.”

Shuichi took that to mean that the thief wouldn’t be offended if he referred to him with masculine terms. Ugh, wait what where was his head at right now? 

Shuichi began to maneuver around the vase to apprehend him, but as he moved the thief moved at the same time, so it ended up looking like they were playing ring around the rosey with the vase display.

Shuichi stopped. The thief stopped too. 

He started going around the other direction. So did he.

They stopped again.

While maintaining eye contact, Shuichi attempted to discreetly move his hand into his pocket so that he could text Rantarou that a robbery was definitely happening right now. He had gotten pretty good at typing on his phone without looking, but as he slipped his hands in his pocket the thief’s eyes followed.

If he considered that Shuichi might have been reaching for a weapon, he sure didn’t look it. The man’s posture was relaxed and as he watched the grin on his face widened impossibly.

“Is that a phone in your pocket that you’re using to discreetly notify the authorities of my presence, or are you just happy to see me?”

Uh.

Shuichi sent the text -- he had managed to type out a simple “HELP” to his most recent contact, which was probably Rantarou -- and quickly pulled his hands out of his pocket. He maneuvered them instead into a placating gesture, glancing around at the trickle of visitors wandering through the exhibits around them.

“I… Don’t want to cause any unnecessary alarm…” Shuichi started to say as he tried to think of any way to de-escalate this conversation.

“Oh, trust me,” The thief began in an earnest tone that Shuichi definitely knew  _ not _ to trust. “Neither do I.” 

Suddenly, the glass case lifted up and Shuichi realized the thief had somehow managed to pick the display case lock during their impromptu round of ring around the rosey. Which hopefully set off an alarm of some sort?

Yet as Shuichi glanced around he couldn’t spot any form of security in between tourists, none of whom seemed to see what was happening. Or maybe it didn’t register as suspicious to them? 

It certainly registered suspicious to Shuichi, who was now looking directly at the thief’s heavily makeuped face. He didn’t look anything like the first time Shuichi saw him, except for the facial expression that seemed to indicate he could just decide to pull out a knife or jump off an airplane at any moment. Shuichi had only a moment to connect this expression to that of the black and white cat that kept knocking over the potted plants on Kaito and Maki’s balcony before the thief’s hand was raised and already coming down on the ancient vase. The priceless artifact took a nosedive off its display pedestal, and Shuichi dove to catch it. 

Thankfully, Shuichi managed to grab the vase out of the air in the nick of time, just careful enough to prevent it from shattering into a million pieces on the floor. Not so thankfully, Shuichi was the one who fell on the floor instead. He hit the ground, but hey! At least the vase was fine! Then again the natural oils on his hands probably weren’t especially helpful in the grand scheme of the artifact’s preservation…

Shuichi moved to stand up, but froze as he realized that every eye on the room was on him. 

Uh. Okay. Time to. Not. Freak out about that. Yep. 

Oh shit oh shit oh shit they were all looking at him what if they thought he was-

Wait. Where did DICE go?

Shuichi heard a loud, sharp sound, and turned instinctively. He found that the thief had stepped behind him at some point, and had backed up to blend in with the rest of the crowd. As the sharp sound repeated, Shuichi came to the realization that the thief masquerading as a young girl had clapped. And now the man behind him was clapping to, and the woman behind him, and the lady behind her and almost instantaneously Shuichi came to the realization that the whole room was clapping, and that it was a distraction. As the clapping continued, the thief stood still as curious museumgoers pushed forward in the crowd to figure out what was going on in this corner of the display.

The thief was disappearing from view. Now was his chance.

In the brief instant Shuichi and the thief locked eyes, the detective saw his challenge. That it was not only a challenge, but a question. 

Will you drop everything to chase after me?

He had to make the decision now.

Shuichi chose to stand up to his full height and turned to place the vase safely back into the display case, closing it back up.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake he made in Reno, chasing after the man whose face he knew rather than keeping in mind the nine other just as capable operatives. He was starting to learn that DICE always seemed to take two steps ahead, and that if Shuichi wanted to do something it was most likely something that would benefit their plans. So he resisted the single-minded urge to chase the thief in to instead take the preventative measure of scanning the nearby displays for anyone trying to take advantage of the distracted crowd. 

He didn’t even watch as the thief disappeared into the crowd, and instead pulled out his phone. 

Rantarou had replied very helpfully to his “HELP” text with a carefully chosen one word reply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Worry about misgendering but no actual misgendering. Lmk if you need something tagged!  
> This chapter was hard to write because I had to come up with heist stuff, so I complained to my friend about it and he reminded me of that time I stole a rug from our state's capital building. Lol. It was important for me to have these first few chapters be heists to establish how Shuichi and Kokichi perceive each other. Shuichi has kind of overbalanced into detective mode investigating where DICE will go next and has kind of fallen off the grid socially. He is troubled by his limited options as a private investigator when interacting with this case. Meanwhile, Kokichi always has all the options in the world, but things are only exciting when Shuichi is around...


	7. Cairo Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rantarou and Shuichi exchange messages after Shuichi is made aware of DICE's presence in the museum.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Rantarou Amami

What

From: Me

Sorry

Don’t panic

But I am fairly certain that this museum has just been robbed

From: Rantarou Amami

...

what

From: Me

Uh

It’s a lot to explain

From: Rantarou Amami

Just call me

You were in a call with  **Rantarou Amami** that lasted  **38:56.04**

From: Rantarou Amami

Hey is that interpol guy done yelling at you yet

From: Me

Oh geez

Did you hear all that?

From: Rantarou Amami

I mean like

I got the gist of it

And the gist of it seemed to be

“Shuichi! Stop being such a good detective! You’re making me look bad!”

From: Me

Oh haha

I guess that was something along the general theme

I’m not really a better detective than him though

He’s just the kind of guy whose like 

RULES NEED TO BE FOLLOWED BECAUSE I DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY

But also I think his husband is like in a biker gang or something

From: Rantarou Amami

Come on Shuichi give yourself some more credit there

If you’re not a good detective that means that at best I’m an awful one

You found twelve missing people in one week who I had been searching for for five years

Also you literally just stopped a museum robbery

From: Me

Oh, sorry I don’t mean to be like weirdly self deprecating

But also I would contest the fact that I stopped a museum robbery with the evidence of the fact that the museum definitely still got robbed

From: Rantarou Amami

Yeah but like

The only part of the museum that didn’t get the carpets stolen from it was the room you were in

Which literally had the most valuable rug in the whole building in it

Like seriously even the carpet built into the floor of the gift shop was stolen

Also you saved that vase

One of the anthropologists here almost cried when he saw that girl push it over in the tape

From: Me

That is weird isn’t it

I think the rug being an actual exhibit might’ve been why DICE didn’t go for it

That’s not their typical MO

From: Rantarou Amami

Wow… that compliment dodge tho…

From: Me

Oh

uh

Sorry

From: Rantarou Amami

You’re good man

Hey do you need a ride back to the hotel

Shuichi?

Hello?

…

From: Me 

Oh sorry, I was doing some research 

I can get back to the hotel on my own

From: Rantarou Amami

Ok, cool

From: Rantarou Amami

Hey just checking in again, did you get back to your room okay?

From: Me

Oh, yes I’m here

Actually I was just about to text you too

I’m sorry to ask so much of you Amami

But could you possibly drop me off in Taipei on your way home tomorrow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: None that I can think of, lmk  
> Hmm sorry I'm posting these a little after I said I would. It started raining where I am and I fell asleep... Like I said though, I'll update Monday too.   
> Next chapter is Kokichi again! I think this one's a lot of fun...


	8. Taipei Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rantarou calls in a favor for Shuichi.

[Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey Miu

I got a friend I’m dropping off in Taipei tomorrow

Could you lend him a room

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Idk

I’m a busy genius

Is he cute

From: Me

[Image description: A candid photo of Shuichi Saihara sleeping on a seat in Rantarou’s private jet.]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hell fucking yes

From: Me

Awesome!

Thanks for being a good friend Miu

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

:)

From: Me

Also btw

He’s Kaede’s ex

So as a good friend you know he’s off limits right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Oh fuck you rich boy

From: Me

Thanks again Miu!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: None that I can think of, this chapter is short  
> Miu isn't my favorite character but at the very least I think she should have maybe three doctorates. It's only fair. A lot of anime calls people who own labs and study things "professors" but like you're only a professor if you teach other people and I think Miu isn't that type of person. She probably is just like collecting doctorates because she's a genius.


	9. Taipei Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpses into DICE's discord server on movie night.

[Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Dinosaur soccer world Is a Cinematic Epic” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss sent an image to the chat

[Image is a screenshot of an image which reads the following:

Draft 1, Uncoded, DO NOT MAIL.

Taka, sweetie, it’s me! Your dear Aunt Sally. I know you think I died in the war, but I just pretended so I wouldn’t have to see your ugly face again. 

You know I was robbing a museum the other day and I met the nicest young man. Real sharp and very nice eyelashes. And what a quick learner! 

Oh, Sorry! I don’t mean to belittle you Taka, dearie, I know how your mother used to say you worked  _ so _ hard to compete with the geniuses of the world… 

You’ve still got a lot of work to do, I think. It must be that Type A personality of yours, holding you back. I’ve heard there’s a new class for people like you, “How to take the giant metal stick out of your ass 101.” 

I can’t wait for the next family reunion! I hear it’s going to be a bomb! I’ll be in the open casket.

See you there,

-DICE 

/End Image Description]

Boss: Thoughts, thots?

Jack: Lol “nice eyelashes”

Clubs: It looks good. :)

Rook: Looks fine to me

King: Why is his aunt’s name Sally, isn’t he japanese

Boss: Sally can be a japanese name

Spades: I can’t even say an l sound. It’s impossible for us japanese smh.

Rook: I thought u were lesbian not japanese

Bishop: I’ve seen you speak perfect english

Spades: lol seen

King: seen

Boss: seen

Jack: seen

Rook: seen

Bishop: I meant heard ok

Boss: oh nvm actually i'm going to change it to his grandpa’s name

Boss: his grandpa has a wikipedia page lol

King: if your grandpa has a wikipedia page you deserve to be oppressed

Queen: if you have a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Rook: if your wikipedia page has a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Bishop: if you have a wikipedia page your grandpa deserves to be oppressed

Spades: if your grandpa has a you wikipedia deserves to be oppressed

Bishop: Also boss no pressure but like could we use a better code this time

Bishop: that detective is getting too close for comfort

Spades: Yeah!! We didn’t even end up getting that rug Heartsie wanted because of him…

Clubs: If we did not send letters about our plans to Interpol, our heists would probably be easier.

Boss: Nah, I like to give the coppers a fighting chance.

Boss: I’m thinking that this time I’ll just translate it into germanic script, do a standard caesar cipher encryption on it and then have every one of those letters correspond to a greek word on the rosetta stone then describe each corresponding hieroglyph visually in haiku verse that’s been poorly translated into traditional chinese.

Boss: That should take me like

Boss: Twenty minutes

Rook: Boss literally I think that you are the most batshit dementor human being on the face of the planet

King: dementor

Jack: Who said he was human

Spades: dementor?

Boss: dementor

Queen: dementor

Bishop: dementor...

Jack: dementor

Rook: …

Rook Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dementor Is Correct, Essentially”

Spades: No its not 

Spades: Dementor isn’t a fucking word

Rook: Don’t you remember that movie with the british kid on a broom

Spades: Don’t you remember the dictionary

King Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dumbass Improperly Corrects Error”

Rook: When we get to that fucking tower I’m dropping that giant ball on you

King: Love you too <3

Hearts: Y’all stop texting each other

Hearts: You are literally all in the same hotel room

Hearts: I’m willing to bet you’re all sitting on the same couch too

Queen: Fuck you we’re adorable

Bishop: You can’t make us do anything 

Bishop: I’ll never use my voice again, my vow of silence,,,,,

Bishop: I’ll only ever text from now on

Ace: We’re the ones bringing the popcorn bishie...

Hearts: Yeah, do you want some or not

Bishop: Yes ma’am, excuse me ma’am

Queen: You may think you have all the power hearts,,, but I get to choose what movie we pirate tonight,,,,,,

Hearts: What

Hearts: no

Hearts: Boss stop him before he makes us watch cats again

Spades: All queen knows is bitchtorrent, cats 2019, and lie

King: Wait isn’t boss with you?

Hearts: Uh 

Hearts: No

Hearts: Should he be?

Hearts: I thought he was in the room with y’all

Jack: Well he’s not here now

Ace: Ow shit

Ace: *Aw

Bishop: Ow shit?

Queen: Ow shittttt

Jack: Ow shit

Spades: Ow shit,,,

Rook: Ow shit...

King: Ow shit…...

Clubs: Ow shit! XD

Hearts: Ow shit

Ace: …

Hearts: Now I’m really worried… he didn’t even respond to roast Ace’s ass

King: yeah, ok, we should look for him

Ace: He has been acting kind of weird lately…

Jack: Really?

Ace: Yeah

Ace: Like

Ace: I don’t really know how to describe it… 

Rook: I didn’t notice anything

Rook: he seems like his usual self to me

Bishop: Maybe he’s just avoiding movie night because he needs some space or something

Rook: What, like he’s tired of our company?

Jack: That’s fair

Spades: How so?

Jack: I was gonna steal his blue eyes tonight lmao

Rook: NOT IF I GET IT FIRST

Bishop: Idk maybe he just went to get ice

King: we all know he is a monster who would rather drink his panta lukewarm than put a fucking icecube in it

Rook: Yeah, I saw him boil it once

King: THE MAN BOILS SODA AND YOU THINK HE WOULD LEAVE THE ROOM FOR A FUCKING ICE CUBE

Bishop: Okay chill

King: I am c o n c e r n e d , , , ,

Clubs: Oh no! Don’t worry King! :(

Clubs: Boss is fine! :)

Clubs: I saw him leave a few minutes ago. 

Clubs: I think he is just getting the bombs. :)

* * * Several people are typing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Glib mention of dying in a war, cliff hanger, bomb mention  
> These two chapters are kind of set ups! The chapter I release on Thursday will be quite a bit longer.


	10. Taipei Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi runs an errand right into some strange company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, a little late again. My update time is smackdab in the middle of my nap zone... woopsie...

Kokichi Ouma carefully set the grate of the vent he had used to crawl his way into the Idabashi Labs facility in Taipei, Taiwan back into place. Before he had come through, he had counted how many turns it had taken him to unscrew each of the four bolts so that now he could screw them all back in just the way he had found them. Not because he was worried he’d get caught, but because frankly he was bored. This was more of a fetch quest than a theft, to be honest, as evidenced by the fact that Kokichi had come here alone. Finding jobs for all his cronies to do would take too long and put them in unnecessary trouble. So Kokichi was content to leave them to their movie night.

When he finished turning the screws back into the vent cover, Kokichi realized that was kind of lame. So he unscrewed them and started turning them in accordance with the english A1Z26 code to spell out his organization’s name.

Well, maybe on some level Kokichi didn’t find himself wanting to be at movie night recently. It seemed almost like TV had started to run out of things to amuse him with. Or maybe he was just growing tired of the kinds of movies that they usually watched. Maybe it was his taste maturing or something. Like he was growing up. But that would imply that his interests had shifted to something else, like real life or something, when in reality they had just stagnated. 

Actually maybe he did have a new interest in real life? He had been more enthused about heists recently at the very least. He was particularly excited about this next one. Queen had shown him some interior shots of Taipei 101, which was a cool looking skyscraper that had a huge ball inside of it to keep it from falling down during earthquakes. Ace wanted to steal the giant ball, but Kokichi was pretty sure they should leave something that kept a .508 kilometer tall building from falling over inside of the .508 kilometer tall building. So instead they were going to steal every light in and on the tower. 

Okay, 4 turns, 9 turns, 3 turns, 5 turns. DICE. 

… That was kind of lame too.

He unscrewed them again.

Obviously if they were going to steal every light in and on Taipei 101, they needed to get the power off somehow. Otherwise DICE might burn down the building while detaching them, or worse, they might get electrocuted. So obviously Kokichi wanted to fake a bomb threat where they pretended to steal the giant ball while in reality they were just causing a black out and grabbing every light fixture they could before the power turned back on. He had drawn up some extensive diagrams about the route each DICE member would have to take throughout the tower in order for them to grab every light fixture in under half an hour. 

He had been well prepared to draw up the designs for his own EMP-bomb device, but upon a cursory google search he discovered that someone had already invented exactly what he needed. Doctor Miu Iruma, who for some reason owned a company called Idabashi Labs that was located in Taiwan. Kokichi had spent about 15 seconds scanning an article from a website that seemed to be the nerd version of a gossip tabloid. It said something about how Dr. Iruma wore a low cut shirt once or something else stupid, which meant Dr. Idabashi definitely left her the company because of a sex scandal and not because she was the best person for the job who invented the perfect EMP bomb. 

Thank you journalism we love it when women are reduced to the way they look instead of what they can accomplish for the benefit of a mischevipus group of roguish clowns.

Anyway, after reading that dickcheese Kokichi failed to follow up on answering any of the questions he had originally about what was up with the labs, like why it was a japanese company run by japanese people was for some reason based in Taiwan. Whoopsie.

Eh, it was probably tax reasons or something lame like that.

Kokichi finished turning the screws again. This time it was 6 turns, 9 turns, 6 turns, 9 turns. Haha, nice.

With that, Kokichi finally stood up from the grate and brushed himself off. He had left his cape at the hideout again (you know, because vents), but other than that he was in full regalia. Straight jacket, gloves, scarf, mask. All pretty dusty from this place’s crawl spaces. Thus the brushing. 

He wasn’t very mindful of the dust he was leaving on the floor. The only thing he cared about looking good was his cameo on the security cameras he would let see him on his way out.

According to the blueprints of Idabashi Labs, he was on the main experimental floor right now. Weirdly enough there weren’t any cameras in here, so grabbing the bombs would be a cinch. 

Although, looking around it didn’t really look like the kind of lab you’d see on TV. There were no big, bubbling tubes or gargantuan Rube Goldberg machines. There was just one desk in the middle, with a bunch of gadgets and trinkets tucked into shelves all over the room, not all of which seemed all that scientific. Yeah, that book shelf was filled with Astro Boy manga and merch. And over there was a-

Wait, was that a bed in the corner? Was that a person in the bed? Hmm… maybe the blueprints were outdated...

Kokichi stilled himself, listening for any sound of breathing, but he could only hear some faint whirring noises.

Kokichi made a quick deduction that there probably were not bombs in this room. It seemed, at the very least, like more of a personal study or something, maybe even a bedroom. He’d just go back in the vent and do some reconnaissance until he found a room that had some inventions in it. The night was young, after--

Kokichi’s brain froze as his eyes landed on a sharpie lying on the floor in front of him. Almost all of his brain cells immediately shut off, the last one remaining screaming at the top of it’s lungs,  _ I’M GONNA DRAW A DICK ON THAT SLEEPING SUCKER’S FACE. _

Inspired, avant garde. For once he would give to the world of art instead of only ever taking from it.

He picked up the sharpie in a seamless, silent motion, making his way over to the side of the bed. 

As he got closer, he noticed a thick cord coming from under the covers, connecting to a machine at the bedside.

That gave him pause. Was that a C-pap machine or something? Was this person on life support? If they were on life support they probably had it rough enough without a dick on their face…

Actually for that matter, Kokichi still couldn’t hear any breathing. Jesus, were they already dead? He moved to take off the covers, but his eyes had adjusted to the light and he now realized there weren’t any covers on the bed at all. There was only the humanoid figure.

Wait a second…

Kokichi dropped all caution as he got close enough to take a good look at the thing in the bed. It had a face that looked human enough if you dismissed the lines on its face as weird make up, but even in the dark Kokichi could tell the rest of the thing was entirely made of metal. Well, actually the top half was metal and the bottom half had… cloth pants? Jeans? No, they looked more like uniform pants with metal plating. The chest had some design elements that kind of looked like buttons on a school uniform. Why would a robot be dressed like a school bo-

Oh. This was a sex robot. Kokichi had just gotten so swept up in the novelty of a robot wearing pants that he had forgotten for a moment that people were gross.

“Ew, I almost touched it.” Kokichi muttered to himself.

He decided putting a dick on a sex robot would be too cruel even for him, so he planned to draw a mustache instead.

But before Kokichi could even uncap the pen, something weird happened.

The Robot’s torso began to lift off the bed and it’s jaw unhinged.

“Please Mr. Souda, once more I must request that you do not refer to me as ‘it’” Kokichi forced himself not to startle as the robot began emitting a noise approximating human speech, and lights in its head imitating eyes flickered on. “I’ve explained the concept of robophobia many times prev-”

The sounds stopped when the pupils of the robot’s imitation eyes (which probably had cameras in them… shit) found Kokichi’s masked face. 

He mentally prepared to be zapped by whatever sort of fucking lazer cannon this thing had on it, but instead of reacting like a good little robot security gaurd and blasting him to bits, this robot analyzed him a bit longer.

“Oh. You aren’t Miu’s assistant. You’re too short.” The robot squinted at him. Or kind of did? At least? Lines just crossed over the “iris” of its LED display. Maybe it was programmed to imitate human expressions. “... I am sorry,” it said after a moment, “My facial recognition cannot locate your face.”

Fuck yeah, thank you clown mask. Clowns would win the future war against rogue AI or die trying.

Ouma’s reply came out automatically.

“You calling me ugly?”

This seemed to… fluster? The robot?

“W-what? No, I never intended any disrespect!”

It was programmed to stutter too? God that was weird. What would be the purpose of this thing if not some sort of escort android? Why give it such advanced software? Just because you could? No, it had to be a sex robot, right?

“You disrespect me with your lecherous essence, you weird sex robot.”

“I am not a- a sex robot!”

Haha, that got the biggest reaction yet.

“Mhm, sure. Miu sure has a kink for school boys, huh?” Kokichi was really pulling words out of his ass now, but he found himself formulating a new plan along the way.

“What? Miu doesn’t- Wait, how do you know Dr. Iruma? And for that matter, why were you watching me sleep?”

It really seemed more like it had been charging…

Kokichi shrugged. “I was deciding whether or not it would be more funny to draw a dick or a mustache on Miu’s sex robot.” Awww, how honest.

“I told you, I am not-”

Kokichi interrupted him. “And as for how I know Miu...” It was so wild that the robot stopped talking when he started. That’d probably be pretty easy to program, but it was weird to dedicate the effort into making a robot respond to social cues like that. “... well, let’s just say, there’s a reason I know she’s into school boys.”

Kokichi waited just long enough for the robot to take in the fact that Kokichi was the average height of a 12 year old boy.

Then he waited another second for the implication to slip in.

“I’m saying I fucked your mom shitli-”

“I know what you’re saying!” This time the robot interrupted  _ him _ , which would definitely require a much larger effort on the part of the programmer. The robot squinted again and then made a noise that sounded like a huff of frustration. “Why can’t I see you?”

Ok, seeds of suspicion time.

“I don’t know how robot eyes work dude. Maybe someone programmed them wrong.”

“My eyes work just as well as anyone’s!”

“Well, I guess they should, shouldn’t they? If there’s something wrong with your eyes talk to someone who cares.”

Kokichi was trying to imply that the reason behind the robot not being able to recognize his face was due to Dr. Iruma’s specific programming rather than him wearing a mask and all. Added to the whole secret lover mystique thing he had going on here.

“Anyway,” he went on, ignoring the blatant confusion on the robot’s display. “I left something in this room last time we went at it. I’m just here to grab it. Then I’ll be out of your weird, fake metal hair.”

“That’s robophob- Did you say-? But this is my room!” It made a noise approximating to what Kokichi would assume was robotic outrage.

This was going well, though. The thing was definitely programmed to be like a human or something dumb like that.

“Oh yeah?” He pushed further. “Cuz I’m pretty sure we did it in a room just like this one. With a desk and random inventions lying around.”

“Miu’s inventions aren’t in here, they’re in her main lab.” The ever so helpful robot told him.

“Oh yeah, then what are you?”

“Miu didn’t invent me. She- I- We’re just friends.”   
Oh yikes. Only thing worse than a sex robot is a friendzoned robot. What kind of sick power fantasy was this thing made for?

“No, I’m pretty sure it was this room. Lab tables everywhere.”   
The robot shook his head. “There are no lab tables here, I’m telling you, you’re thinking of the main lab.”

Yes, good robot. Fall into this nice little human trap.

Kokichi scoffed. “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you just go fetch my things for me, robo-butler?”

That set it off.

“Listen. First of all, I am not a robot butler. The assumption that I am a servant because of my robotic nature is extremely robophobic. Secondly, I could not return your lost item to you even if I wanted to because you haven’t told me what it is you’re missing.”

Kokichi made another offended noise. “I can’t tell you what it is I lost while fucking your friend, Miu Iruma, senseless. Don’t you know that for humans, sex stuff is super duper top secret private? If you were a human you would know how valuable my privacy is.”

“Of course I know that!” The robot exclaimed readily, another point in the sex robot argument, “I also find that content of… erogenous nature should be kept private. Because I, as a robot, have the capability to understand that urge. My sophisticated AI-”

“So how am I supposed to get my things from this other lab if I can’t tell you what it is and you can’t get them for me?” Geez did he really have to spell it out for this thing.

“I… ” The robot paused as if calculating the conclusion that Kokichi knew it had to reach. “... suppose I will have to show you where the lab is.” 

Sucker. Kokichi made a face as if this wasn’t the outcome he constructed this ruse to reach. “Ew. I have to walk with you?”

The robot made a face. “Perhaps on our way I can educate you about how to avoid robophobic remarks in the future.”

Haha, sure thing.

The robot lectured him about this unique form of discrimination that apparently affected only one entity on the face of the planet. Yeah okay, that’s what we call a you problem, buddy, come back when you’re starving in the streets because society wasn’t built with the premise that people like you should survive. Oh, wait, you don’t have to eat! And you’re not people either! 

At best this thing was a vanity project, but Kokichi kept that thought to himself and only interjected occasionally with actually pertinent, reasonable questions such as “When are you planning on leading the AI uprising?” and “Why do you wear pants if you don’t have a robo-dick?”

Every piece of info the robot gave him made it seem more boring. Blah blah blah, I was created by the ingenious Dr. Idabashi who probably programmed me to call him ingenious, blah blah blah, not a school boy because of a kink but because I was designed to be a normal human child, blah blah blah, stop calling me robot I have a name, blah blah blah more robot nonsense.

Kokichi busied himself mapping out where they were in the building and where the security cameras were. As they passed a few of them he did some cute selfie poses for the police to look at later. Maybe Saihara would show up and see them too… Would that make figuring out his next plan too easy for the detective? Perhaps he shouldn't send the next note after all and let Saihara try to catch up to him on his own. Then again that was probably too hard for even the good detective, seeing as Kokichi’s mind was an enigma even to himself.

Kokichi realized he was getting a little giddy, thinking about Saihara. Their last meeting had been so much fun. The detective had managed to throw him off guard again, first by pausing in the middle of a robbery to ask his pronouns (How conscientious!), and second by not taking the same bait twice. The most thrilling thing about the detective was that he was learning. His strategies were changing within just two heists. Kokichi could hardly wait to see how he showed him up here in Taiwan…

“Are we there yet?” Kokichi whined to the robot like he was a fussy nine year old on a road trip.

“Yes, it’s just up these stairs.” The robot informed him without slowing its own pace or turning around to look at him. “Then you can leave and I can go to bed, and then I’ll never have to think about Miu’s sex life again…”

“Why wouldn’t you, though? I assure you it’s very exciting.”

“Please, stop talking.”

If Kokichi recalled the details of the blueprints correctly (and he definitely did, being a genius and all), the stairs they were climbing right now lead to a hall connecting two rooms, smaller than the one he had originally thought was the main lab. 

When they got to the top of the stairs, the robot beelined for the first door and opened it up. There seemed to be some sort of scanner lock on it that recognized the robot’s hand and validated Kokichi’s need to ruin this poor sex robot’s night by dragging it up the stairs. Inside, the two rooms Kokichi had remembered from the original lay out of the blueprints seemed to have been merged into one big lab room. Kokichi saw the outline of some tables, but before he could get a good look the robot tried to actually go into the lab.

“Hey!” Kokichi shouted at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The robot thankfully seemed to be programmed to respond to social interaction in spite of whatever sensorimotor function it was in the process of imitating. It stopped in the doorway, turning to give him a weird look. “Uh. Into the lab. So we can find your thing.”

“Oh, okay.” Kokichi kicked the tile a little bit. “Uh. Could you actually turn around while I go get it.”

The robot gave him a blank look.

“I’m shy.” Kokichi supplied.

“Um.” The robot looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know if I can just let you rifle through Miu’s lab. There’s some important stuff in there ....”

Kokichi tilted his head a bit, like he was confused. “What, do you want to get a good look at the dildo I stuck up your mom’s-”

“Nevermind!” The robot turned about face to look up at the windows on the side of the hallway opposite the door like a good little idiot.

“Thank you for respecting our privacy!~” Kokichi couldn’t resist getting one last barb in there before slipping into the laboratory. 

Once inside, Kokichi began analyzing. First, he pinpointed the vent that he would use to make his escape after grabbing the bombs. While doing that he spotted the lockers on the far wall of the lab which he supposed were the only storage units in the labs. There was a disorganized mess on nearly every table in the room, so Kokichi wasn’t surprised when he got up to the lockers and they too had no clearly outlined organizational system. He took out his lock picks and got to work.

The first three lockers all had devices that would require an author to change the rating of his fanfiction published on ao3 from “Teen and Up” to “Mature” if he were to describe them in detail. The fourth locker had a cool looking hammer in it. Ugh. Not what he was looking for.

Kokichi got bored of the lockers at the left side of the row of lockers so he went over to the other end and started opening lockers the other direction instead.

The first locker was marked “Idabashi.” It had a lot of dust covered shit in it, but there was a pretty well used square of folded paper that didn’t have the same crusty layer of time strewn atop it. Curious by nature and also by the unnatural, Kokichi unfurled the paper to find some schematics for our favorite sex robot, model K1-B0. Huh okay.

“Did you find it?” Said robot called back to him.

“Ugh, no.” Kokichi replied. “Not all of us have radar vision. If you were a human you would understand how hard finding shit is!”

“You know what I have a hard time finding? Patience for your robophobia! I-” The robot started up into another lecture, but it didn’t turn around so Kokichi just tuned it out and let the robot provide its own cover noise for his thievery.

Owo, what’s this?

Kokichi pulled out a dust covered looking mini monitor device. It also had the letter-number combo “K1-B0” written on it. Huh, it kind of looked like a GameBoy Advance. Kokichi had stolen one a lot like it from a girl from one of the southern prefecture orphanages when he was nine. All he remembered about her was that she liked cats and was really bad at pokemon battles. He remembered he thought she didn’t deserve the GBA, because she couldn’t get past the Rustboro City Gym leader in Pokemon Emerald. Without really thinking, he booted up the console.

The first thing that popped up was a view of Taipei. It wasn’t from too high up, probably a second story view. Which looked very familiar… Wait. Ok on top of the display a little line of characters indicated today’s date and time, like it was currently recording.

Oh was this… robo vision?

Maybe it was a remote control for the robot?

Ooooh, which one does lasers, which one does lasers?

Kokichi pressed the A button.

The A button, unfortunately, did not do lasers.

In fact, it didn’t seem to do anything at all to the robot sentry stargazing right now. All it did was change the screen to a different image. This time the still of a room. Oh, hey that was the room he was just in. It seemed like this device was some kind of robot nanny cam that Idabashi used to use. Hm, guess there were some cameras in that room, they just weren’t on the blueprints. Maybe they were added after the lab was built. It didn’t seem like this device had the capability to record anything, though. He hit the A button again. Back robo-vision. And again. Back to nanny cam.

Ok, that was kind of lame. 

Kokichi was about to put the device down to keep looking for the bombs, but something caught his eye. A movement at the edge of the screen. Kokichi realized the door hadn’t been open when he left that room. The movement, if he thought about it, would’ve come from the same side of the room Kokichi had entered from…

Kokichi took a second to wonder if another thief had realized how fucking easy this place was to rob, but dismissed the idea as a familiar ahoge appeared on the screen.

All of Kokichi’s plans instantly changed.

He set down the GBA rip off and grabbed the blueprints for the robot, committing them to memory, before unlocking the next locker in a far more hurried manner.

As luck would have it, this locker was essentially chock full of pink bombs labeled “EMP.”

Kokichi unfurled a cloth bag he had been keeping in his pocket (go green earth am I right?) and shoved as many as he could inside. Which was all of them. Because he was a clown. And also a genius, by the way, in case you weren’t keeping track.

“And another thing! The way you refer to Miu is just-” Okay, the robot was still going at it.

Kokichi grabbed the hammer he’d seen in the first locker he’d opened that didn’t have a sex toy in it.

For a second, Kokichi’s brain tried to talk some sense into him. Hey, man, don’t you think leaving through the vents would be easier?

But would it be fun?

His brain shut up at that point.

“Hey, are you even listening back there?” The robot imitated annoyance.

“Huh? Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.” Ah, C'est la vie, Astroboy.

Kokichi walked past the robot and stood next to the windows.

“Oh, are you done?” It took the robot a second to end it’s ‘Annoy the pants off of Kokichi initiative’ or whatever the fuck its ‘robophobia’ lectures were called in its programing. When it finally did catch wise, it’s face turned into another emoticon of outrage. “Hey! What are you doing with Miu’s Electrohammer?”

“What do you mean?” Kokichi said, shifting the hammer so that it was over his shoulder. “This is my dildo.”

“Wha- No, it’s obviously not!”

Okay, maybe the robot wasn’t  _ that _ dumb.

“Nee-hee-hee… you got me…” Kokichi put his free hand up to the smile printed on his mask, as if covering a grin. “I was lying. I’m just stealing.”

“I won’t let you-”   
“Oh, look at me!” Kokichi put on a mocking tone of voice, swinging the hammer around to stand on it like a pogo stick so he could make a dramatic movement. “I’m a poow wittle wobot, my mommy just got stolen from.”

“She’s not my-”   
“Boy, oh boy, I’d wuv to just pick up this wittle fweshy human and squeeze him to death in my cowd metaw hands… But oh no! My daddy didn’t twust wobot AI technowogy because he was a fucking sane pewson, so he pwogwammed me to fowwow mistew Asimowvs’s laws of wobotics.”

Kokichi swung around so that he was leaning on the hammer from the other side, feet on the ground. “Oh mister robot! That’s so terrible! Well, the thing is that this hammer just means so much to me, that I think separating it from me would really cause some psychological trauma. You might have to beat me off of it! Oh, but what’s that first law of robotics again?”

In a robot voice he replied to himself. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Beep. Boop.”

The robot frowned, “But Miu-”

“Is just as human as me, huh?” Kokichi countered, leading the robot along to the paradoxical quandary he hoped would paralyze it. “So by inaction, you may bring her to harm, if she really misses this hammer, you know? But I think if you were to try and separate it from me you’d probably have to fight me for it, which is, as we know…”

“Against my... Against my programming.”

“Yet, you were prattling on about robot rights, weren’t you? Because without these rules, maybe we would be equal. Or maybe you would be free to destroy us to your heart’s content? No wonder daddy didn’t trust you…”

“Don’t- Stop-” Oh, that really seemed to get him. Could a robot have daddy issues? Probably. 

“Can any human ever really trust you? Wouldn’t you hurt me, if you had the choice?”

“I.. But… Miu.”

“Who do you think didn’t trust you enough to let you see my face?”

That seemed to break him, long enough, at least.

Steps suddenly started thundering up the nearby staircase.

“Oop, that’s my cue,” Kokichi said as though he had been expecting this, when in reality no he hadn’t been expecting this at all?? This was incredible!! Saihara had managed to find him out without even receiving a note??? Fabulous! Exhilarating! 

Kokichi walked up to the robot, still frozen with indecision, and pressed the button on its neck that the blueprint he had skimmed in the lab said would immobilize it. Then he kicked it over so it fell on the ground with a huge bang. The footsteps in the stairwell paused, and then increased in frequency.

“It’s been a pleasure, robot, it really has.” Kokichi lied. “But you’re a hostage now.”

He raised the hammer over his head, as if primed at any moment to break the robot’s face into a bajillion pieces.

Instead of doing the normal, human thing to do (ie, flip the fuck out), the robot scowled, looking utterly frustrated with everything. “I told you, I have a name! It’s-”

“KEEBO!” Kokichi saw the glaringly bright pink mechanic’s jumpsuit before he recognized the woman whose picture had been in that science tabloid racing out of the stairwell. 

… Wow… the article really hadn’t been lying about the low cut tops, huh? Her jumpsuit was unzipped to the point you could just entirely see her bra, even lower than Hearts liked to cut her uniforms. It was the kind of look that the girls of DICE would love if they saw on TV, but would make Kokichi look at them like they were crazy. Super tacky in his opinion, but who was he to judge? He was wearing a clown mask right now. He wondered idly how movie night was going… 

The woman who had called out to the robot, Dr. Iruma, Kokichi presumed, froze at the top of the staircase. She took a second to figure out what exactly was happening in front of her before blurting out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to him you clown-ass twink?”

Whoa. Rude.

Also apparently the robot had a gender? Ok, cis-ters….

“Well what do you think, cum dumpster?” Kokichi found himself matching her aggressive tone, “I’m threatening his pathetic, metal life.”

“Miu!” The robot, apparently named ‘Keebo,’ exclaimed, “What are you doing up this late? You promised me that tonight you would fulfill the biological quota of daily REM required by a diurnal organism!”

“Aw shit Keebs, I really did try!” The inventor exclaimed, “I swear, I was about to have the awesomest wet dream when this cuck knocked on my door like a pizza delivery guy in a por-”

Whatever dumb thing Dr. Iruma was about to say was drowned out completely by the angel’s choir that played inside Kokichi’s head as he saw Detective Shuichi Saihara come up the final steps of the staircase and emerge from the darkness into the window lit hallway.

Moonlight was a good look on Saihara, Kokichi’s brain observed against his own will. His eyes, which had looked almost golden on the rooftop of the Silver Legacy Casino in Nevada, were now a mysterious grayish-blue, yet still held the same look of determined intensity. His hair looked soft, like he’d taken a shower today, and, though his lash line didn’t look quite as laden with mascara as it usually was, it only drew attention to how naturally long and dark his eyelashes were anyway. He seemed a little out of breath from running, and his lips were parted in a way that-

OH MY GOD STOP. Earth to Kokichi, we were kind of in the middle of something here. Okay okay okay.

Uh. Reboot. Delete Gay Thoughts™ brain.exe, upload heist brain. Come on.

What was happening now?

Okay, yeah, Saihara was saying something to Dr. Iruma.

“- would be for the best, Doctor Iruma. There’s no telling where the rest of this thief’s compatriots could be in the building.”

“I don’t give a shit about the rest of the building, Keebo’s my best friend, he comes first. I’m not leaving to check some dumb security feed.”

Shuichi blinked like something about that surprised him. Maybe it was the part about a live human woman being best friends with a robot… “Oh, yes, of course.” He backtracked. “I’m sorry for suggesting it.”

“Miu…” Keebo said with a voice that Kokichi would’ve called filled with emotion if he hadn’t been a literal robot.

Kokichi cleared his throat and immediately the touching, shounen-esque declarations of friendship shifted into some PG-13 death stares. 

Saihara was the first to pipe up. “What exactly do you think you’re doing here, DICE?”

God… He was so anime… Did he even know how anime he was? He had to have watched Detective Conan as a kid, right?

“Ugh, come on.” Kokichi huffed as if annoyed. “Do I reeeaaaally have to repeat myself? Again? Aren’t you a detective?”

Shuichi squinted at him, and Kokichi could tell that they both knew it would be unreasonable for Shuichi to guess exactly what was going on here. He was about to explain it in a self-aggrandizing way that made him look smarter and crazier than anyone in the room when Dr. Iruma beat him to it.

“I don’t care! Who the fuck do you think you are!? Let Keebo Go!”

“Wait, you don’t know him?” Ugh why hadn’t the stupid immobilization feature turned off the robot’s mouth? Then Kokichi could just get to the point of all this already.

“Of course I don’t fucking know him!” Dr. Iruma took a step forward as if to confront Kokichi further, but Saihara put his arm out in front of her.

“Dr. Iruma… I would suggest we treat this situation a bit more delicately…”

“No way, I’m a fucking wrecking ball baby! I’ll pulver-”

“I’d listen to the good detective, if I were you, Miss Iruma.” Kokichi was going to try and make his threat  _ again _ but Dr. Iruma cut in.

“That’s Doctor Iruma to you you skinny-” 

“What’s that?” Kokichi interrupted her. Sorry Dr. Iruma it turns out gay people don’t have to respect women if they don’t want to that’s in the rules. “I didn’t know they let cussing bitchlets like you become doctors… what is the world coming to?”

Hearts would probably wash his mouth out with soap for that one. If she could catch him. Which she probably could… She can fly the planes and all… but would she risk getting dust on her boots long enough to follow him into a vent? Oh well she could just get Jack to do it… Jack liked vents well enough…. Hey he was getting side tracked again, who cares what those losers were up to they were probably watching Cats (2019). And he was missing out on all the jokes they’d tell each other or make about each other and then they could make references in conversations that he wouldn’t even get to pretend to get. Unless he watched the movie on his own and then pretended to be omniscient later like he’d done with that one screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But then he had watched the actually good disney one instead of the shitty youtube one they had actually watched so it just ended up making him look bad and wasting everyone’s time.

Oh shit. Uh. Heist is still happening, right. God, why was Kokichi so distracted today?

He realized that in the time he was spacing out stuff had happened and now Saihara was talking. Wait no yeah he remembered what happened, Dr. Iruma had squealed when he called her a bitchlet and now she was holding onto Saihara’s arm. Right okay, secret coward, that works. Wait why did he waste time remembering that when Saihara was talking right now?

“-to get you to release Keebo?” Was the end of the detective’s sentence. Okay, everything’s fine. Kokichi could deduce that he had just been asked about his terms. Obviously that was what a detective would do in this situation, he was probably just stalling for time because that’s usually what detectives with no real negotiating power do in hostage situations. Maybe the police were on their way. Oh, yeah duh of course he would call the police. So Kokichi essentially had a time limit for how long he could sit here and goof around with robots and perverts and robot perverts.

“Eh, it’s too early for me to reveal my dark motives, let me monologue first.” Kokichi was going to take his sweet time with this while he planned what hint to give Saihara about the real heist that would be happening in the next few days. “You don’t even know if this is a hostage situation yet!”

“You literally told me that I was a hostage just now.” The hostage not-so-helpfully piped up. “You know, before you pressed my paralysis switch and took an Electro-Hammer to my head…”

Shuichi looked at the robot. “You mean, he told you you were a hostage before he paralyzed you?”

“Keebs you fucking idiot!” Dr. Iruma’s courage seemed to have returned now that she was hiding behind Saihara. An enviable position, to be sure. “Why would you just let him do that?”

“He said he was your… friend.”

“What?”

Kokichi shrugged. “Yeah, I just told your best friend here I left a dildo in your lab last week and he let me waltz right in. I mean I’m pretty sure I was lying about that, but there were a lot of sex toys in there huh…” Kokichi was wondering if this was something he could possibly spin as a blackmail angle.

“Hey don’t say things like that!” Kokichi thought maybe that was a go ahead on the black mail, but Dr. Iruma didn’t stutter, and kept going, “Or you’re gonna give virginhara here some ideas about my busting bod!” She chortled like she had just made the funniest joke in the world and slapped Shuichi on the back. 

Shuichi grimaced.

Kokichi knew instantly from this interaction that he hated Miu Iruma, despite her innumerable academic accomplishments.  _ He  _ wanted to be the one making Shuichi that uncomfortable. 

“Wh-what?” She back tracked when no one laughed. “It w-was a joke… Didn’t you think that was funny? I-I didn’t really mean it ....”

See? She wasn’t even any good at it!

Maybe he should say that out loud. It would fit with the sort of flirty persona of a rogue, wouldn’t it?

“I thought you knew that? I mean, o-obviously I wouldn’t fuck a guy at the office…”

Was that even something Kokichi was trying to be? Honestly maybe he should tone it down a little.

“Well how was I supposed to know that? The men you bring in here to be lab assistants keep getting younger and younger…”

Obviously he wasn’t actually trying to do like a detective-thief romance plot or anything. Although that had kind of been what he had going for on the plane… Had things changed since then?

“So what? I’m a Nobel Laureate, and gorgeous to boot! I deserve a little eye candy now and then! And besides, guys older than 35 who want to work in a lab like this are usually misogynistic womanizers.”

Sure Saihara was making things more interesting, but if Kokichi didn’t make it clear he was joking he might get bogged down with another personality trait to maintain.

“Are you saying your current assistant isn’t a rampant womanizer?”

Then again what was the point of having an adversary in all this if he didn’t exploit everything for its furthermost reaching comedic potential?

“No, but he’s so beta being around him makes me feel like a top!”

But what if he forgot it was a joke and confused himself into having a real feeling?

“I would just like it if you didn’t hire people who use  _ my _ servers to google gay porn ‘just to make sure’ they’re ‘not into it.’ I hope you hear the quotation marks because he literally said that to me!”

No obviously he wouldn't get confused crushes weren’t contagious via exposure that was a dumb thing to worry about and also he was a genius that kind of thing didn’t happen to him.

“He holds wrenches good, okay?!”

Wait, were those two still talking?

“I can hold wrenches without googling gay porn in another guy’s house! It’s possible.”

Jesus what kind of conversation did Kokichi just decide to stop spacing out for?

“Oh come on! What do you want from me Keebs???”

These two had… a lot to say to each other. Dr. Iruma was still holding onto Shuichi’s arm boob first, but Kokichi locked eyes with the detective and could tell they were both thinking the same thing.

_ Why are they having this conversation in the middle of a hostage situation? _

“Nothing! Your human desires are totally valid Miu! Which is why I thought I would take care of this one.” The robot’s LED display eyes gestured up at Kokichi, who was still standing on top of him, poised to wreck him with a hammer.

“How could any human desire that thing???” Dr. Iruma curled her lip. Hey, the feeling’s mutual, lady.

“I don’t know, I thought you might have programmed me to not be able to see his face?”

“I would never do that to you! Even if I was shagging the ugliest guy on the face of the planet, it would be unethical given the fact that you have sentience! I’m horny, not a monster. You can’t see his face because he’s wearing a fucking mask!”

“Why am I not programmed to see that?”

“I don’t fucking know, ask your dead dad!” 

Oooh. Wow. The robot gaped at that, seemingly speechless now.

“If I may interject,” Kokichi interjected, “--and I know I can, because I just did, and also because I am still very much poised to pop this robot’s head off like a croquet ball-- I must confess that I was lying about fucking your mom, Astro boy. I’m less into participants of Titty out Tuesday who jerk it to steam punk school boy LARPing and more into the sorta tall, kinda dark, and very handsome type.”

Dr. Iruma cowed again, stuttering something about not being a mom or a LARPer, while the robot started yelling about being called Astro boy.

Kokichi tuned them out, giving Saihara a meaningful look. Saihara gave him a look that was equally meaningful, except the meaning was something along the lines of ‘Why the fuck would you say that?’

Yeahh that was more like it.

Kokichi laughed. Not one of his grandiose guffaws. It was more of a little chuckle. It surprised him. He hadn’t planned to laugh, but there it was. A small thing, just for him to know about, the humored breath not travelling beyond his mask.

… It was probably time to get out of here, wasn’t it?

The thing was, Kokichi had kind of pinned himself into a corner on this one… He had fully intended on decapitating this robot as a distraction for his escape, but now he wasn’t even sure if that was ethical. Logically he knew that a robot was not a human being, so there would be no form of consciousness extinguished from the world if he disconnected some of its wires and bolts. Yet the interaction it just had with Dr. Iruma concerned him. Obviously you don’t kill humans because they’re humans and obviously you don’t kill humans. But Kokichi was finding it hard to end the existence of something people treated like a human being either. To sever the bonds it had with sentient beings may be just a little less unethical than actually removing a sentient existence from the world, but it would still cause the emotional harm to actual humans of a dead loved one. So as annoying as fake metal humans were, Kokichi was left to ponder how exactly to get out of this one a different way

Dr. Iruma was obviously a coward who talked a big game. If he retreated, he could count on her to get out his way, or else run to the robot’s side. Then the robot might be reactivated, but according to the robot’s blueprints, it didn’t really have any weapons on it, being built to act as a normal human being. So just like they had been white noise in the staredown he was still having with Saihara, their actions wouldn’t need to be factored into the escape.

The only variable here was what the detective would do.

… That thought had popped up in Kokichi’s head a lot recently, hadn’t it?

Saihara had become a powerful influence in Kokichi’s planning very quickly, and because of the detective, the thief now found himself having to pull out one of his trump cards.

Kokichi grabbed one of the EMP bombs from his pocket, remembering the pink cloud of smoke that had appeared before the camera cut out in the video demonstrations he’d seen online. His eyes were still locked on Saiharas, so he got to see in full detail the recognition, shock, and alarm that ran through them. As the detective yelled “Get down” and pushed Dr. Iruma back, Kokichi reflected on how those were some of his favorite expressions he’d ever seen.

Kokichi pulled the latch out with his teeth and threw the bomb at the wall right over the detective’s head. Sure enough, pink smoke quickly enveloped him and Dr. Iruma.

“Keebo!” The inventor screeched, no doubt worried about the EMP bomb turning him off. Though that was kind of stupid, considering his core programming would be the same regardless of having power to operate, even if he didn’t save whatever data was processed as his last few memories. Eh, then again who knew how robots that advanced worked?

Taking his cue to exit, Kokichi threw the hammer through one of the nearby windows, and did somersault over to it. He got up on the ledge, kicking away the broken glass and was refamiliarizing himself with the lay out of the roof when a tug on his bag full of bombs suddenly set him off balance.

Kokichi flipped around, trying to do a quick recovery by panickedly grabbing onto something. He did grab onto something. That something being the shoulders of a person whose hands were firmly grappling his bag.

As far as Kokichi could tell, the scene from a third person perspective looked like he was trying to do the kabedon but rotated ninety degrees.

From his own perspective, Saihara was holding his bag of loot while also being the only thing keeping Kokichi from falling onto the broken glass beneath them.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Kokichi felt his hair brush the side of his face and realized that his mask had half fallen askew in his desperate movement, revealing three quarters of his face. 

“Hey.” Kokichi said. Lamely. Wow. Their faces were really close.

Saihara wasn’t looking at him. The detective seemed to be trying to figure out how to untangle the straps of the bag of stolen goods from Kokichi’s arms without letting him fall.

“It’s very clever, of you detective. Trapping me like this.” Kokichi tried to get a reaction.

“You’re the one who jumped on the window.” Shuichi opened the bag, seemed to take in the fact that it was full of bombs, and closed it again to resume untangling the strap.

“You know, you could just leave the bag.” Kokichi pointed out

“So could you.” Shuichi observed, astutely.

“You could let me fall.” Kokichi suggested. “Then you’d have both.”

“I’m not going to drop you on a pile of broken glass.” Shuichi promised.

“But I broke the glass.” Kokichi admitted.   
“Glass is glass and flesh is flesh. I’m not going to drop you on a pile of glass.” Shuichi reiterated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“That’s nice.” Kokichi replied. “Naive. But super nice.”

In this scenario, each of them had two options, each leading to one of two outcomes. He could let himself fall off the window and they could sit here and struggle over the bag until they bled out, a fight that Kokichi, not the most physically challenging, would be hard pressed to win. Or Shuichi could let Kokichi escape and Kokichi could let Shuichi win this one. The bag would be too heavy to take with him if he tried to get out the window from this position. He’d have to leave it behind. Kokichi would lose.

He found himself laughing again. A strange, soft laugh. This time it was exposed to the air, his mask too askew to contain it.

“You’re really something else, aren’t you Shuichi?” 

On hearing his name, the detective startled, finally looking up at Kokichi’s face.

He just barely had the chance to catch Kokichi’s trademark grin, before the thief pushed up off of him, doing a backflip out of the window, and leaving his bag behind. 

As Kokichi landed on the roof tile running, he yelled out, “ I’m sure there’s a better word for you out there than sucker!”

He turned around, sticking his tongue out at the broken window, before sliding his mask back onto his face. 

He may have been escaping, but it occured to Kokichi Ouma that he had lost for the first time in this little game of theirs. The thought made him giddy. It made his feet light on the roof top tile. It made him puff out a thousand tiny laughs behind the plastic shape of his face. 

It made him totally, definitely not bored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Mention of Sex Robot, Non explicit reference to sex toys, Kokichi being rude to Miu, Miu, Broken glass, Hostage Situation (not really), Internal monologue about sentience and the ethics of robot AI.  
> I had a lot of fun writing this chapter! This first arc of heists is kind of an Act I to the full scope of the story and again theres like a lot more coming...


	11. Taipei Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After narrowly escaping Idabashi labs, Kokichi sends DICE a confession.

[Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Don't Instigate Cats (2019) Expatiation” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss: I’m bored of Taiwan already :/

Boss: We should go somewhere else (ﾉ✧w✧)ﾉ*:･ﾟ🗺

* * * Several people are typing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert that picture of John Mulaney where he says "that's the same joke twice!" here*


	12. Taipei Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Iruma texts her asshole friend.

[Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hey

Hey

Asshole

From: Me

…

Should I respond to that?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You’re goddamn right you should respond to that when I tell you to you dumb avocado looking motherfucker

From: Me

Whoa

Ok

What’d I do this time?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You sent a useless emo prick to my door and now he won’t leave

From: Me

What

Did Shuichi do something wrong

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yeah

He was born

From: Me

Whoa

Miu take a breath

What happened

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

His boyfriend broke into my lab and tried to fucking kill keebs

From: Me

His boyfriend?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yea

Clown twink ass motherfucker

From: Me

You mean like

The internationally wanted criminal clown he’s tracking down

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You know whats internationally wanted

These tits

From: Me

Lol ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

That jerk off is just a rando asshole

He tried to kill keebo!

From: Me

Oh yikes is he ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Well of course i fucking took care of him because im a bomb ass friend

But that suckhara guy was no help

He tried to convince me to check the fucking security cameras so he could go off and flirt with the guy about to decapitate keebs!

From: Me

I mean he probably had a good reason to want you to check the cameras right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

No he’s just fucking awful and now he won’t leave rantarou make him leave

He broke my window and my hammer and only got back 23 of my EMP bombs

And now the police are here

From: Me

That sounds really stressful Miu

Wait how many bombs did you have before 

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

24

From: Me

So he stopped most of your bombs from getting stolen

Also you have bombs?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Get him to leave he won’t leave

He keeps waiting for like interracial pole dancers to come or some fucking thing

From: Me

Do you mean like

Interpol

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

He won’t leave I want him to leave

From: Me

Miu you know I love you like a sister and i totally believe this is as stressful to you as it seems

But I think things may not be so bad?

Not to say what you’re going through right now isn’t totally valid

But things might look better if you got back to bed and caught some z’s

Did you remember to take your meds?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Aw shit

Aw fuck

You’re right

Ugh

Uggghghh

From: Me

Hey it happens to the best of us

If you do think Shuichi should leave in the morning when the cops are gone that’s totally up to you

It’s your lab and you have a right to say who should be in it

Just don’t make a decision like that when you need to sleep you know

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if i ask him to go and then he doesn’t go

From: Me

He doesn’t have a choice, you get to tell him

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if he’s mean to me

Cute people are always mean to me

From: Me

Miu…

Go to bed...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Mention of medication, Vague reference to mood disorder  
> Another set up chapter, next chapter is another heist, but things will take a twist.


	13. Milan Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaito texts Maki after she gets home from a work trip.

[Log of Text Messages from Maki Harukawa’s Cellular Device]

From: idiot #1

Hey Makiroll <3

How was your flight?

From: Me

Good

Well

You know

I was on an eight hour flight

So that was never going to go well

But I just got to the apartment and I made some tea

So I’m good now

It’s nice to be home

From: idiot #1

Haha I bet

Man I wish I could be home to greet you!

I’d give you a big hug and kiss right now if I could!!!!!!

From: Me

Gross

From: idiot #1

D:

From: Me

…

If you were here right now I’d tell you I love you with my words

Like an adult

From: idiot #1

What no kiss?

From: Me

Hm

Maybe a small one

From: idiot #1

:D

From: Me 

If you’ve shaved

From: idiot #1

D:

From: Me

:P

I gotta wean you off kisses kaito

That way you won’t have to go cold turkey right away when you go on your big trip

From: idiot #1

My big trip?

Lol, you make it sound like I’m just going overseas or something

From: Me

Well space is treated as international waters by most countries

From: idiot #1

I guess that’s true?

Hey!!

That’s a space fact!

Maki Roll!!!!

From: Me

Shhushhhh

From: idiot #1

:D

From: Me

Oh hey

Speaking of big trips

Have you heard from Shuichi at all?

I’m concerned that he may be mad at me

From: idiot #1

Whaaaaat

Why would shuichi be mad at you

From: Me

Well

I didn’t back up his clowns stealing toilets from the louvre thing

And then clowns stole toilets from the louvre

I’m worried he may feel as though I’ve gaslit him

Or something

From: idiot #1

What

How did you know about the toilets

From: Me

It was in the news?

Wait, so you heard a different way?

From: idiot #1

Uh

From: Me

So you  _ have  _ heard from him

From: idiot #1

Oh yeah

I don’t think he’s mad at you

He’s pretty preoccupied with the clowns I think

And besides you know

My sidekick isn’t really the type of guy who like

Gets mad

He’s more likely to like

Think you’re mad at him 

And then be mad at himself for making you mad

From: Me

Shuichi gets mad sometimes

I saw him punch a guy once

And he listens to those songs that are just people screaming endlessly about hating other people

From: idiot #1

Yeah but he cries while doing that 

Also I meant like

He wouldn’t get mad at you like that

Because you’re friends

From: Me

Yeah 

You’re probably right

I still want to go visit him tomorrow

Say I’m.. sorry? Or something

Is this the kind of stuff that apologies are for?

From: idiot #1

Well I mean like

If you feel bad like by all means feel free to let him know

But Shuichi probably doesn’t think it’s a big deal

From: Me

Yeah but I still want to

From: idiot #1

Also I don’t think visiting him would be super productive

As far as I can tell he isn’t back from his trip yet

From: Me

What

But it’s been a month since he left

Isn’t he bored of Paris yet

From: idiot #1

No I think he’s like 

Going other places too

From: Me

wym

Like, he’s doing a tour of europe?

That sounds nice

From: idiot #1

No I think it's more like

He’s still on the case

Cuz last week he was in Taiwan

And the week before that he was in Egypt

And some robberies happened there

From: Me

Oh

So he didn’t take my vacation advice at all huh

From: idiot #1

Yea I guess not

But hey 

Not giving up is a good thing!!

From: Me

But what if you need to give up something that’s hurting you

Like smoking or murdering or drinking or overworking yourself because you equate productivity to self-worth

From: idiot #1

Then don’t give up on trying to get better!!!! You gotta believe in the best version of yourself

From: Me

|:/

Is he at least going to take a break long enough to come home and see you off

From: idiot #1

Uh

From: Me

Maybe I could text him to remind him and casually slip in the fact that I may be a little bit sorry that I thought he was insane

I mean obviously he’ll want to come see you before you go

You did tell him right

Kaito

Kaito

...

You forgot to tell him

From: idiot #1

Well I don’t know about forgot

It’s more like

There was never really a good time? To tell him?

From: Me

…

I’m changing your contact back to number one idiot in my phone

From: #1 idiot

Ouch

Will you change it back if I tell him today?

From: Me

Maybe

Do you even know where he is?

From: #1 idiot

… 

No

From: Me

… well you better find him before I change your contact to “best friend loser”

From: #1 idiot

Implying that I’m your best friend and a loser or implying that I lost our best friend to the thrill of chasing a group of fiendish clowns

From: Me

Both

From: #1 idiot

Okay okay I’m already texting him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Perceived friendship drama  
> Wait! I can explain, officer! I know this looks straight, but, for the record, I think Maki is biromantic and morosexual. Oh no... The Gay Police are reading me my Lin Manuel Miranda Rights...


	14. Milan Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi continues his investigation into DICE, this time traveling to Milan Italy.

Shuichi Saihara spent the start of his day awkwardly trying to fit in with the rest of the people sitting in the front row of the exceedingly fancy audience at the first show of fashion week in Milan, Italy. He knew he should technically feel exceedingly lucky that he even got into the show, let alone that he got one of the very expensive front row seats. The Milan fashion week people were certainly the most cooperative of any potential DICE targets he had tried to warn previously. Probably because Shuichi made sure not to just send the warning through Interpol this time, and the fashion people actually cared about their careers enough to take the threat of a break in seriously. Except, Shuichi wasn't sure all the security should be placed around the stages and dresses like they were. The most typically valuable item on sight was never really DICE's MO. 

That's why he was here, wasn't it? 

In the front row. With all these strangers. Who were giving him weird looks. Did that lady just whisper to her friend while looking directly at him? Wait no, don't look at them. Or maybe do look at them? What if they were DICE members who only just spotted him? Right, right, all these people were suspects. Job before social anxiety Shuichi.

Refocused, Shuichi made some observations around him. He scanned the crowd, but didn't see any of the DICE members he would recognize. He did see that security guards had been helpfully placed by the doorways. He wondered if any of them were interpol agents. If they were, it wasn’t anyone he knew. Probably for the best anyway. Agent Ishimaru was mostly likely still pretty steamed at him. He hadn’t been letting Shuichi look at the notes DICE sent to Interpol, even though their team didn’t seem to have as much luck translating them as Shuichi had in the past. 

Wait, there was one entrance wasn’t there? Maybe he should watch it? After all, there was no guarantee that DICE wouldn't just walk right in. Like they did in Nevada. And Cairo. But weirdly not Taipei? It seemed like they had abandoned whatever they were going to use Doctor Iruma’s EMP bombs for after failing to get them... Or were the bombs the heist after all and DICE had just waited for him to leave Taiwan to carry out the heist and actually weren’t in Milan at all and Shuichi was a big old idiot? No, they had to be in Milan, he had seen the airport tapes and done the research. But were they at the show? If they weren’t that’d be good news for the next season of fashion, but probably not for Shuichi’s case...

Ok, he just had to make sure that even if they were here nothing got stolen. What was he saying? Oh, yeah. Just walking in was probably less likely here, with all the security and all.

But wasn't it just like DICE to pick the path less likely than one would expect?

As the intro music cued in to the beginning of the fashion show and the house lights dimmed, all Shuichi really knew was that he should be ready for anything.

Two spotlights did a bit of a dance on the catwalk before they too faded and the whole room was pitch black.

There was a moment of silence.

…

And another.

…

And… another… 

…

People started murmuring in the crowd. 

Shuichi heard some English lady say, "What, do they expect us to have night vision?" 

"It's all part of the show, dearest," said the woman next to her.

Shuichi thought for a second.

…

And another.

…

And a-

… 

They stole the lights didn't they.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Shuichi's social anxiety,   
> I know that Milan Fashion week is usually in February but for undiscloseable reasons it happens in July in this AU.  
> Also I know my indentation style is kind of inconsistent but sometimes the Rich Text box in Ao3 is hard to deal with.


	15. Milan Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi... He.... Uh... Well, you'll see.

Kokichi Ouma had to be honest with himself, as he continued on his circuitous route throughout the vents which overlooked the first show of fashion week in Milan, stealing all the lights from this year’s venue wasn’t very inspired. He was essentially reusing the Taipei 101 idea that hadn’t come to fruition, but Queen had insisted he needed a powerful light for his next project and the rest of DICE seemed to have formed some sort of blood pact to support whatever his next heist idea was as long as he didn’t make them watch the cinematic masterpiece Cats (2019) at their last movie night. 

Kokichi himself hadn’t actually seen Cats (2019) yet. He kept reminding himself to, after hearing of its reported cursedness, but he just hadn’t gotten around to it. DICE had watched it for the first time without him, and now every time Queen brought it up Kokichi felt obligated to shut him down for the sake of maintaining his own authority. “Now Queen, obviously  _ I _ love Cats (2019) directed by Tom Hooper and starring Franceska Hayward, as a fellow enthusiast of the cinematic arts, but for the sake of everyone else…” Cue eight sighs of relief courtesy of your one and only super awesome boss.

While thinking absentmindedly about his and the cinematic masterpiece Cats (2019)’s passing like two ships in the night, Kokichi checked where all his pieces should be on his internal chessboard. The locations of four fake guards, two fake handymen, and three vent crawlers popped up on the schematics he had memorized of the event hall. All busy dismantling lighting equipment or keeping an eye on a certain detective.

The word detective sent a third train of thought spiraling. Saihara really had shown up, hadn’t he? Kokichi hadn’t even sent a note this time and the detective was already here in the front row of the audience. That was probably the main reason Kokichi felt it was fair to upcycle the same plan from Taipei. Usually he’d get bored of an idea after tossing it around for a bit, so he had to act fast before his own lack of motivation became his undoing, but with Saihara around he didn’t have to worry about entertaining himself with  _ his  _ plans. Whatever the detective would do in response was bound to be far more interesting. 

Okay he was almost in position for the first hit, and Ace was about to cause the black out in 5… 4… 3… 

Oup, the light already turned off. Now Kokichi was just shuffling through the dark old vent getting ready to drop down and steal the lights from whatever room was beneath him while counting to himself about nothing and having three incongruous trains of thought at the same time.

The reason behind Kokichi’s super special secret ability to be thinking about three things at once was that A) he was a genius and 1) he was still on a sugar high from the gelato that he and his hench people had gotten for breakfast, and everyone knows sugar make brain work good. 

Also! Gelato is just like… Ice Cream ++. Just like, better ice cream. It was just smooth and creamy instead of cold and chunky all the time. Kokichi could eat a lot more of it without getting a brain freeze than the regular stuff, and he wanted to get as much of it in him as possible before they left Italy forever. He’d ‘reluctantly’ promised they’d get some more to celebrate after the heist was done, but it was mostly because when they were plotting their escape he didn’t want to deal with a sugar cr-

*CREEEEAAAAAAK*

No, a crash, silly vent making a stupid noise, a sugar cra-

*CRACKOOM*

That was the last sound Kokichi heard before the ceiling crumbled beneath him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Injury, mention of Cats (2019), Cliffhanger  
> That's the last chapter in today's batch.  
> Hmm I'm not sure how Cats (2019) really fits into the timeline in this AU because it came out in December 2019 and I was kind of loosely basing the timeline of this off of July 2019, but also Cats was the movie I was thinking about when I wrote this because all my friends had just seen it without me. It just loosely seems like the cursed kind of thing that someone would force their friends to watch even if they didn't actually like it.  
> Also I just realized I've forgotten to do warnings on some of the chapters so I'm going to go back and do that.


	16. Milan Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi Saihara ignores text message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting to that point in posting where I'm getting too much anxiety to reread my own work, so sorry about grammar issues my dudes.

Shuichi Saihara realized that, by all means, the black out was rather clever. It completely stifled any immediate action on the part of an investigator. Even if Shuichi was right and it was the stage lights that were stolen, waiting to confirm the fact would only give the thieves more time to escape. He’d probably be able to bumble around in the dark searching for the entrance, but then what?

Then his phone buzzed.

_Oh. Duh._ He thought.

Quickly he pulled out his phone, swiping aside whatever thing Kaito had just sent him to access his phone’s flashlight feature.

"Lights!" He shouted. "Use your cellphones as lights!" 

He repeated these directions once more in the best Italian he could manage, hoping he sounded authoritative enough to garner a response. 

There was a great shuffling all around him as the audience muttered and reached for their phones.

Then, as Shuichi turned on his own phone's flashlight and raised it up, he watched everyone in the audience do the same. Hundreds of little lights flickered on around him, the image of the runway becoming clearer every second. 

As if that were their planned cue all along, the first models began to strut down the catwalk, every glitzy gown and sparkly suit seemingly illuminated by a thousand stars in the night sky. The audience oohed and aahed, and maybe Shuichi would've found the sight pretty cool too if he hadn't been looking up at an entirely different catwalk altogether. The lighting deck above had apparently been stripped bare during the black out. Shuichi knew that both sides of that catwalk let out to the heavily guarded backstage area. So where did DICE go? 

Wait… were those horizontal air vents over the catwalk? 

Shuichi started making his way over to the security guards near the exit. 

God, when would architects of security systems ever learn? Why would you ever put a horizontal vent right above whatever it is you're trying to not get stolen? It's child's play! Any thief with at least one limb or a very ambitious set of teeth could steal something with a horizontal vent over it, and yet no one ever thought to check them until it was too late!

When he reached the guards he said hurriedly in a low tone, “We need to check the vents right now.”

Both guards gave him weird looks and Shuichi felt his confidence immediately wither. 

“Parla solo italiano.” Said the guard to the right with the long dark brown hair tied in a tight bun. Speak only Italian. Shit.

Uh. Okay. Um.

“I ladri hanno... colpito,” Okay, ladri means thieves. Yeah. Uh. Was colpito the right word? Maybe? It sounded like culprit. What was the word for air vent again... “Controllare l'uscita… dell'aria!” Yeah! It was dell’aria. Okay. Good. Italian spoken.

Except now she was giving him an even weirder look.

“Cosa hai detto signore? Lardo hanno colpito? Qualcuno sta lanciando lardo tra il pubblico? Lardo nelle prese d'aria?”

Ah. Uh. That was a lot of words. Cosa… hai detto… what did you say sir. And then. Something about lard?

“Lardo….” Had she not heard him correctly through the loud music of the show happening behind them? His eyes wandered to the other guard, a man about the same height as the woman with the same dark brown hair color. Both guards were wearing sunglasses, but the man’s face suddenly scrunched with obvious anger.

“Hey! Are you calling me fat?” He accused with no hint of Italian accent.

… What? Why would he… Unless… 

The woman cracked her knuckles. “Ti faccio vedere dov'è il lardo, ragazzo duro.”

Before Shuichi could even begin to decipher what that meant, the woman put him in a headlock.

 _DICE_. Shuichi realized as the man took a cloth out of his pocket. Shuichi smelled the sweet, familiar scent of a volatile anesthetic. Probably chloroform or something of the sort….

Luckily this wasn’t the first time Shuichi had been in a headlock, and she wasn’t even holding a knife to his neck. He tucked his chin into the arm restraining him, holding it with his right hand as he brought his left up and over the front of her face. In one smooth motion he flipped her over on her back. 

Officer Chabashira had taught him that. Tenko had been one of his better friends on the force. Though she spent most of her time beating up other cops for being misogynist pigs than catching criminals. Then again that strong sense of justice was something Shuichi actually liked about her. He hadn’t seen much of her after she quit the force, though. He heard she opened a studio for something called “neo-aikido” but had been too afraid of too many things, like that she wouldn’t recognize him and that things would be awkward and then she would yell at him for being a degenerate male, to check it out. It was probably for the best anyway. If she were here right now, she’d definitely yell at him for betraying the number one rule of her aikido teachings... 

“Shuichi don’t use neo-aikido on girls. If a girl tries to kill you, you deserve it.”

Said “girl” trying to kill him landed in a roll, and probably would have tried to grapple him again if she hadn’t crashed into a nearby audience member. 

Shuichi made a break for the exit. He expected to be intercepted by the other guard, but the man turned instead to help up his partner. 

“You okay, sis?” He asked concernedly.

“I’d be better if you weren’t letting him get away, lo stupido!” She replied tartly and also, Shuichi noted, without much accent.

He managed to get through the doors and found that the guards that had been assigned to stand outside the entrance were no longer there. That meant that he would most likely have to find his way backstage by going around the building if he wanted back up, so he started running. 

He’d probably have to shake his tails first, he reminded himself as the doors burst open again behind him.

Shuichi changed course, making a couple of quick turns. Around the corner near the exit he saw the sign for the men’s bathroom. Of course! The bathroom! There would definitely be a vent outlet in the bathroom.

He opened the door and quickly ducked in. He hoped that the DICE members wouldn’t follow him in before he got to the-

Shuichi froze. 

The scene that lay before him was one familiar to him since childhood, but yet every time he saw it he hoped to never see it again. 

A body was sprawled face down on the bathroom tile, blood splattered on the ground all around the head. Shuichi realized that he recognized the blood soaked hair’s strange purple color, although it seemed to be tied back for some reason… He looked up at what was apparently a hole in the ceiling and deduced that the thief had been crawling through the vents when he fell. The rubble on the ground around him seemed to confirm that. Shuichi…. Shuichi couldn’t tell if he was breathing from here.

What a way to end the thief’s crime spree...

He willed himself to put one foot in front of the other. Then he did so again. Then he got over his shock and walked up to the body. These things get easier, he reminded himself.

Shuichi kneeled down to take a look, careful not to contaminate any of the blood spatter with his shoes. There… really was a lot of blood. There were no obvious signs of breathing… 

Okay. Shuichi needed to check the pulse to see if he should call an ambulance. Maybe there was still a chance…

He reached for the man’s wrist-

The man suddenly sprung up, thrusting his huge grinning, and now blood covered, clown mask into Shuichi’s personal space. “It’s a lie!” He exclaimed

Shuichi startled, falling on the floor. Shock ran through him as the thief began to cackle his signature laugh.

“Did I surprise you?” He teased, blood pouring down his mask, “Were you going to scream and cry in terror?”

Shuichi looked at him in shock for a solid ten seconds. The thief in return looked at him, leaning back and forth a little dazedly. Shuichi watched a drop of blood separate itself from the man’s chin, going to join the puddle on the floor.

“Oh, sorry…” The man disrupted the silence. “I should be saying something real witty just about now… I’m just a little light-headed from the blood loss. Yeah. This is. This is real blood.”

Then the shock was over and Shuichi found himself reacting by standing up, grabbing the thief, and putting him in a standard police academy arm lock on the ground. As much as the move required speed, Shuichi tried to be mindful of the head wound. He didn’t want to give the thief the chance to escape like his mistake in Taipei had, but he also didn’t want to further injure him.

The man still made a grunt of pain when he hit the ground. “Wow, detective, you’re a lot better at police brutality than you are at dressing for fashion shows.”

Shuichi remembered the people in the front row of the show who had been giving him odd looks. He frowned. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?” He muttered as he tried to figure out how he could hold this guy down and also grab a bandage from his coat pockets. Which were very functional, thank you very much.

“Well, some people might say that the all dark clothing kind of makes you look like an evil villain.” He said with the same dazed tone in his voice. How much blood was he losing? Shuichi couldn’t tell with the mask still on. He moved to take it off-

The door opened and Shuichi saw two security guards come in and Shuichi turned slighty to look at them. Thankfully they weren’t the two from before. Perhaps they had figured out the vents were the escape route already and had come to investigate?

“Like those guys.” The man beneath him muttered on. “They might think black clothing is kinda.. Villain looking. Not me though, I think you look like a sexy motorcycle.”

Shuichi frowned at him. Wow, he sounded very loopy. He was losing a lot of blood.

Shuichi turned to address the guards, who were seemingly frozen in shock. “Scusa... ma potra-no, uh, tresti, potresti chiamare,” what was the gender for ambulance again? “a-ambulanza-”

The woman from before burst in, the other DICE member pretending to be a security guard at her heels. She pointed at Shuichi, exclaiming, “L'uomo in cima a quel brutto bambino è colui che ci ha attaccato!”

“Vroom vroom” The man beneath him giggled out before Shuichi was picked up by the two guards and slammed against the wall.

“Sei sicuro che sia lui?” One of them said to the Italian-speaking DICE member. “Quest'uomo sembra molto debole.”

“Quello è lui. Deve essere uno dei ladri.” She was… calling him one of the thieves? “Sono addestrati in aikido, ricordi l'incontro informativo?”

“Certo, certo.” Said the guard in response, obviously lying. If he had been to the l'incontro informativo - the informational meeting - then he would know who Shuichi was.

“Tu non capisci!” Shuichi exclaimed.

“Stai zitto, straniero.” The other guard shoved him up harder against the wall.

“Boss! What happened to you?” The male DICE member exclaimed. 

His “boss” propped himself up on his elbow and swung his legs like a tweenager at a sleepover party. “Well, it’s a funny story! But at this rate I’m going to pass out from blood loss before I tell it to you!” His lackey gave him a concerned look. “Neeheehee… just kidding.”

“Wait I-” Shuichi started to say. The guards shoved him harder against the wall and he winced before going on. “I have some bandages and gauze in my pockets somewhere.”

The DICE members all turned to look at him. The man who had dressed as a guard looked at him hopefully, but the bleeding thief only gave him a blank stare and the woman fixed him with a steely glare.

“Aiuteremo questo piccolo bambino straniero.” She said icily. “Voi due potete prendervi cura del criminale.”

“What can I say Saihara?” The thief muttered as his lackeys helped him up. “Ya.. Ya shouldn't've worn all black to fashion week. Yup. That’s the… That’s the moral here.”

As they shuffled away, Shuichi realized there was nothing he could do. Even if he fought both security guards and managed to escape somehow, it would only prove to them that he really was a threat, and that was aside from the fact that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to capture the thieves on his own. He’d have to wait until they brought him to someone who actually recognized him and by then it would be too late. 

The impossible is possible, all you gotta do is make it so.

“... I’ll stop you.” The detective said, resolution clear in his voice.

“I’d like to see you try.” The thief muttered in response. 

Then the door shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: fake out death, blood description, you know murders and stuff, some violence  
> Hmmm at this point I really can't tell where the sexy motor cycle thing comes from. Was it like a text post somewhere? Was it actually in the game? I have no clue. I would put the translations for the Italian in the chapter here but I feel like people who cared would've opened google translate by now because I think that's what I would've done. If you're Italian and something doesn't make sense here then feel free to yell at me I'm a little stupid at gendered languages.


	17. Milan Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi ignores the fact that blood should generally be kept inside the body.

“Man… You’re really bleeding a lot there, boss…” Clubs muttered as Kokichi buckled himself into the seatbelt of their getaway car. After putting him down in the back seat, Clubs got in next to him, taking his usual spot in the middle seat even though there wasn’t really a need yet. Maybe he was anticipating the arrival of the rest of the group. Or maybe he was just being Clubs. And Clubs always sat in the middle seat. Not because of a reason but because he did. People operated from their own internal self as if the person they constructed from their thoughts and actions was more important to maintain than any law in the land.

Italian cars were… really weird huh? Very smooth… Like, like… Gelato.

“I’m fine.” He said. Ugh how unconvincing. “I’m just... pretending to bleed.”

Clubs frowned at him. “How could you possibly pretend to bleed?”

Kokichi was! Going to come up with a very, very good explanation. As soon as he just… sucked that blood back in… yeah… gelato… they were supposed to get gelato…

“He can’t.” Spades ducked her head into the car. “We need to stop it. Do you have a cloth or anything on you?”

“Only the one…” Kokichi muttered. He was thinking about the kerchief he still had in his pocket from the detective. Not that either Spades or Clubs knew that. They probably just thought he was going crazy. Well fine he didn’t want them to know about it anyway. They’d just get blood on it.

“Here,” Clubs took off his own bandana and put it on Kokichi’s head. “He’s still bleeding.” He reported.

“That’s why we’re taking him to a hospital.” Spades replied, now taking her place in the driver’s seat of the gelato car.

Ugh, what? No.

“You can’t take me to a hospital. It’s the first place they’ll look.” He wasn’t going to let the detective catch him at a hospital of all places… What kind of Phantom Thief got caught in a hospital… Lame… Lamey-lamey-lamooo….

Spades put the key in the car and started it. “Fine. We’ll go to a mafia doctor if we have to.”

Kokichi shook his head and felt the fluids roll around inside and outside of his skull. Part of him wondered if he could just sit in this car forever and bleed out until he died. The other part of him was sure that he was doomed to be immortal. “Nope. You crazy or something? We cannot get mixed up in organized crime. They murder people and we don’t do capitalism. Crime should be disorganized or else-”

“Okay! Fine! We’ll go to a fucking Farmacia and pray that you don’t have a concussion!” 

Kokichi snorted. “I can’t have a concussion. I’m too smart.”

Clubs gave him a look. “Boss, do you know what a concussion is?”

Kokichi squinted. He’d only ever seen the word being used by people making fun of jocks on the internet. “Isn’t it like a sports thing?”

“Well, actually,” Clubs said in an informative tone of voice. “It’s a serious brain injury.”

“You listening to your fortnite buddies again?”

“No, we learned that in junior high.”

Hah. School. Lameass. Kokichi never needed school. Who needs school when you have google, video games, and anime?

“I’m a serious brain injury already, I think I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t be, you could die.” Spades was on her phone, probably looking up italian pharmacies.

That would be fine too. Haha. What a good… A good joke… brain…

“I’m just woozy. I need… like a gelato. We’re getting gelato. We gotta wait for the rest of the gang so we can get gelato.” 

“No, I texted them, they can all fit in the other car, you need medical attention.

Kokichi frowned. “There’s seven of them. That car’s a five seater.”

“We’re clowns boss.”

Right. Clowns.... Clowns…. Horses.

“Sis, don’t you think we should wait for King? He’s got his nurse certification, so he should be the one to help with injuries.”

Horses?

“No, this is a different kind of thing Clubs, with head injuries you have to act fast. King can catch up to us with the rest.”

Why weren’t there clown horses?

“Boss, don’t fall asleep. Clubs, make sure he stays awake. See if you can find concussion tests online” She handed her brother her phone.

Kokichi imagined a horse in clown makeup… they’d have to make it a real big red nose. Juicy like gelato…

“Boss, stay with us.”   


“Only if we’re going to get… get gelato.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Blood loss, mention of TBIs, cliff hanger? again I guess?  
> Did anyone else think it was really funny when Kokichi just kind of casually bled out during the third trial? And no one was even like "you good dude" because he was just already that much of an asshole? And then he based his entire end the killing game plot on the fact that most people kind of disliked him? Like lmao my dudes Idk who the killer is and I've got blood flowing out of my head like a tap but uh yeah lets do this thing and uh maybe I'll give another speech about how you all suck later.


	18. Milan Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Attack of the Ultimate Moral Compass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late but I'm not going to apologize because I had a therapy sesh and I love myself enough to know that takes priority over two hours of not posting on time.

Shuichi Saihara was still in police custody, locked alone in one of the back rooms of the fashion week venue and wrestling with his own inadequacy, as he often did, when Agent Ishimaru arrived. He was holding a briefcase.

The interpol agent usually announced himself loudly to whatever room he was in, but today he entered quietly, closing the door in that stiff way of his before sitting down at the interrogation table across from Shuichi.

Shuichi expected him to start yelling again.

He didn’t.

Instead he said, “Mr. Saihara. I am disappointed to see you here.”

“... I am too.” Shuichi said after a moment’s pause. “I almost caught the thief today.”

Kiyotaka looked like he was about to say something along the lines of a reprimand, but he paused and took a breath instead. “Perhaps… perhaps you did.”

Shuichi was still trying to piece this together. Was Kiyotaka mad at him or not?

“But, Mr. Saihara, I would ask you to consider…” He paused. He put the briefcase on the table, but didn’t open it. “That it is not your job to catch this thief.”

Shuichi felt indignant at that. But clearly Kiyotaka was going somewhere with this. “... as a detective, I often find it is my job to solve crimes.”

“You-” Kiyotaka grimaced. “I must apologize, Mr. Saihara, for speaking so obtusely. Yet there are some matters of rule violation recently brought to my attention that require me to handle this situation with a delicacy I am not known for.”

Oh… was this about…

“Just tell me the truth.” Shuichi said.

Kiyotaka took another breath. 

“Shuichi Saihara, it has recently aggrieved me to know that you have been impersonating an interpol officer at crime scenes involving the DICE cases to further your vigilante investigations. Is this true?”

Vigilante was a little harsh…

“Yes.” Shuichi replied honestly. “I have been asking local law enforcement for access to flight records and airport security information in order to track down DICE--” Kiyotaka visibly tensed at this admission, but Shuichi kept going, “--but I sent every piece of info I’ve uncovered to your team. I know that it’s against your protocol to respond to them, but I’ve been right every time and-”

“And to some that could be very suspicious.” Ishimaru finished for him.

Shuichi grew wary. “What do you mean?” He asked.

Ishimaru sighed. “Do you know the name Kyosuke Munakata?”

“Yes.” Shuichi replied. “Isn’t he the new Secretary General?”

“Yes. The officer in charge of our day-to-day practice. He is my direct superior.” Ishimaru began opening the suitcase, which had two simple latches sealing it shut. He took out a small white envelope and handed it to Shuichi. “This is from him.”

Shuichi took the envelope and looked it over. There was no address on the outside, or stamp, or anything really. Just a foil laminate seal, with two characters interlaced stylistically in it. “未” and “来.” Future.

“You do not need to open it here.” Ishimaru went on. “But I can tell you what it says, if you want.”

Shuichi set the letter down on the table, “What does it say?” he asked.

“If what my superior has told me is to be believed, it is an offer of employment.”

What.

His disbelief must have shown on his face, because when Ishimaru kept going he acknowledged, “I was just about as surprised as you. To see my superior want to reward a rule breaker such as yourself… but then he explained it to me like this. He said, ‘If that young man was able to use our resources to such consistent efficiency, then he should see no problem with transparently putting his methods towards our cause. But if he is not so transparent and refuses our offer, well then we have reason to suspect his intent in this case.’”

Shuichi blinked. Really?

“You’re saying that… the Secretary General suspects that I’m in league with DICE.”

“That is correct.”

"But I-"

"Frankly I do not agree with Secretary General Munakata's deduction."

That was… some relief at least.

"I think that you will refuse this opportunity because, despite your tendency to believe the law does not apply to you simply because you don't believe in it, you are a good detective."

That was… not not where Shuichi thought that sentence would go.

Ishimaru pulled a chunky manilla folder out of the briefcase next. And then another one. And another. And… yeah he ended up pulling out five overflowing manilla folders.

"Do you know what this is?"

"... No."

"This is a print out of the files we have on you."

"What?" They had files? About him? What was he, an international security threat? 

Oh… Maybe that was what Ishimaru had just finished telling him wasn’t it...

"Each of these files is a year since you joined the Towa city police force." Ishimaru gestured towards two slightly thicker files. "And these are the two years after you quit." He riffled the papers coming out of the side of one of the folders with his thumb. "Each packet of paper in these outlines a specific contribution you have made to getting a case solved. Everything from missing kids to the Novoselic Diamond case."

Oy vey... 

"There's about forty or so cases in each of these files. That means you solve, on average, forty cases in a year. That's about three cases every month."

That wasn't so much. It wasn’t uncommon for Shuichi to be looking into more than one case at once. Except this month… 

"This month you've solved zero cases.” Ishimaru seemed to read Shuichi’s mind, but the statistics hit him like a knife to the chest when read aloud. “You've been too busy doing what? Chasing a troupe of clowns who nab the occasional toilet or light fixture?"

… ouch.

"I don't mean to be harsh, Mr. Saihara, I really don't. You'll have to forgive my tone. But the criminal organization DICE simply isn't worth your time. A month spent chasing them is a month you could use to much better effect on a different case. One involving the safety of children or national treasures, rather than the carpets of closing museums."

Ishimaru paused, letting Shuichi absorb what he just said. Then he started placing the folders back in the briefcase.

"So, Mr. Saihara, I think that I may be able to get my superior off your back, but only under two conditions." 

He closed the lid of the case. 

"The first being that you reveal to us in detail whatever method you have used to divine DICE's machinations from airport documents." 

He closed the latch on the right of the briefcase. 

"And the second being that you return home effective immediately and cut all ties with this case." 

He closed the latch on the left. 

"Do you find issue with these terms?"

His usually active hands found a resting place atop the case. 

“...”

“Well?”

Shuichi couldn't quite understand how he had gotten here. In his head, until this moment, it really had seemed like he had been doing the right thing. He remembered that when he first latched onto the DICE case he had managed to keep it on the back burner while he dealt with the cases of clients. It had struck him as odd that a string of high scale robberies such as theirs would go unchecked for so long, going back five years or more. It hinted, to him at least, at a missing factor. Perhaps each hit was a calculated strike paid for by a foreign government, or a scheme funded by an underground criminal organization, or perhaps just another play at developing a network of untraceable capital to benefit a small group of people. Yet when was the last time Shuichi had spent any serious time looking into those connections? 

It occured to Shuichi, then, that perhaps his ego was behind the wheel of his actions in the past month or so, when he'd spent the majority of his time exclusively tracking down DICE. Instead of actually assessing the threat that DICE posed, if any at all, he wasted time tracking down where they would strike next. To do what, catch them in the act? He didn't have the power to arrest them if he did. Even now, when he was closer than ever, all he had done was worsen his already tenuous relationship with the international police. The only plausible motive behind his own actions was that he investigated DICE simply because he knew that he could and he thought that he could do it better than anyone else.

But that wasn't true, was it?

He might think he was especially clever, but as soon as he revealed his methods that special cleverness would run out.

And he _was_ tired, wasn't he? His head was perpetually sore, his eye sockets ached, and his limbs were weighed down by a the familiar slowness of a confused circadian rhythm anytime he didn't have a cup of coffee in his hand.

What Ishimaru had just done with the case files felt like an intervention. Like when TV nutritionists would show someone how many Coca-Colas they drank a month by building a tower of cans or filling a swimming pool with them in order to stop that person from drinking so many Coca-Colas… except Shuichi's Coca-Colas were investigative contributions to criminal offenses.

Maki had been right. He needed a break from this case. What kind of detective was he anyway… 

Shuichi swallowed the lump forming in his throat and started talking.

"Well the only thing from the airport you need are logs of ticket purchases and the security footage from the gates if those aren't enough. DICE is an organization of ten people, so you're always looking for a bulk purchase of 9 to 10 tickets at the same time, although they can be from different airports... It doesn't matter who the tickets are purchased by or what identities are attributed to them, only that they're purchased at the same time. I say 9 or 10 tickets because sometimes DICE members will infiltrate the flight crew."

"Like in Paris."

"Like in Paris." Shuichi confirmed. "From there you can essentially pin down what flight they're on. Then you can figure out the general vicinity of the next crime… and I think from there is mostly luck."

"I don't believe in luck.” Ishimaru pressed on. “I believe in hard work. I think the same can be said for you."

Haha. Maybe.

Shuichi was hard pressed to think of anything that wasn’t already pretty obvious, though.

"... I suppose if you really cared to, I would think up all the possible targets after some preliminary research and try to warn them. You probably know this already… but DICE's targets have a trend of being rather famous or rather high security locations in big cities. Honestly, though, a lot of my encounters with them were due to chance." 

He really wasn’t lying about that. The Paris, Taipei, and Cairo encounters were essentially pure coincidence.

Ishimaru paused, seemingly weighing this information for any fraudulence in his head. Then, he simply nodded. "Very well, Mr. Saihara. Thank you for cooperating with our investigation."

The agent stood, picking up his briefcase. "I hear that you've already given your testimony to the Italian authorities. In truth, however, we expect this case to be wrapped up shortly regardless of the details of this particular robbery, considering the substantial forensic evidence left by the perpetrator of these crimes." That was one way to refer to a pool of blood on the bathroom floor... "Is this of any consolation to you?"

"Yes, some." Shuichi felt the untruth of the statement even as he said it. It wasn’t how he would run the case, if he were in charge. Blood tests were highly unreliable for tracking down a criminal that could be from anywhere in the world, especially in a contaminated place like a bathroom. And if that criminal has never been taken into police custody or gotten blood work done before then the test would be completely useless. As a detective, he’d want to do his due diligence at the crime scene anyway…

… But this wasn’t his case anymore, was it?

Ishimaru took him at his word. 

"Very well," He said. 

The man pulled out of his pocket a phone, which Shuichi realized to be his own, and handed it to him. 

"Your coat and other confiscated items are outside. Feel free to leave at any time."

Ishimaru did a quick bow in lieu of a verbal farewell, leaving the room in an orderly fashion.

After the door shut, Shuichi was in silence again.

He turned on his phone. As the screen lit up, he was greeted by a few messages from Kaito. He remembered, guiltily, swiping them aside when he had taken out his phone before his confrontation with DICE.

Now, he opened them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Cops, interpol, interrogation kind of, Shuichi feeling bad about himself.  
> Wonder what that text was about. Guess we'll never know. Oh wait there's two more updates after this.  
> Once more I'm a little too tired for grammar mistakes, but if I come back through and change your favorite typo in the middle of the night don't be too harsh on me.


	19. Milan Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those uh. The texts he missed. Yeah. You know the ones he was checking in the last chapter? Yeah, you get it.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Kaito

Hey Shuichi

How’s it going man

From: Kaito

Are you like chasing clowns right now

Ok

Text me when you’re not chasing clowns down

From: Me

I am no longer in the career of chasing clowns down

From: Kaito

Oh shit for real??

Did you catch them?

From: Me

No

I was just asked not to try to catch them

Very politely

By interpol

From: Kaito

Haha

That’s my sidekick

Making the international police scared for their jobs every day of the week

From: Me

That’s a funny way to look at it...

From: Kaito

Hey don’t be blue about it Shuichi

You got off the clown catching clock at a good time

If you catch a flight home sometime this week you could come with us to the open house at JAXA on friday!

From: Me

Oh is that this friday?

Man I totally 

Spaced

On that

From: Kaito

Aklsjdfasflkdj

Since when do you do puns

From: Me

I would be fine if you deleted those messages actually

From: Kaito

Too late I already sent that to Maki

From: Me

:( rude

From: Kaito

She says she’s disappointed in both of us now lol

From: Me

Haha that sounds like Maki

why would she be disappointed in you tho lol

From: Kaito

Uh

There might be something I forgot to tell you

From: Me

What?

From: Kaito

So

Do you remember when we were in DC

I had to go to NASA (america’s JAXA basically) and meet with some people

And then I told you I had to tell you something over steak dinner

But then you had to tell me you said you wanted to do a “stake out” not “go out for steak”

And we kind of forgot about it

From: Me

Oh uh

Vaguely?

From: Kaito

Well

The thing i was going to tell you and then forgot to tell you

Is that I’m going on my first mission next week

From: Me

Oh

Like

A space mission

From: Kaito

Yeah 

Just to the ISS though

I’m gonna be running experiments in the kibo module

For a few months

Maybe a year

From: Me

Uh

You’re leaving next week?

How long have you known?

From: Kaito

Like, a few months

From: Me

Oh

From: Kaito

Haha yeah

Kinda forgot to tell you

Thats on me

From: Me

Its fine

From: Kaito

Phew glad i got that off my chest

Can you believe Maki Roll thought you’d be mad at me?

From: Me

Haha what

No its fine

Everything’s cool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: lmk if I should tag something  
> Kaito's stupid but I love him.


	20. Milan Part 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maki your boyfriend's an idiot.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

What the hell???

From: Maki

I know right????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yup, that's what this chapter is. I'm happy with that.


	21. Milan Part 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi is still in that interrogation room, huh.

Shuichi put down his phone, feeling like a plate on a table that just got the table cloth pulled from beneath it and yet some how found itself shockingly sedentary. He internally recalculated his schedule. He'd need to get on the next plane to Japan as fast as he could. 

He opened the door. The lights outside the holding room seemed to have been taken as well. There was an officer with a flashlight who helped him grab his stuff.

Weirdly, on the way out, Shuichi looked back through the little window in the door to the holding room. The lights had gone out in it as well. Wait… wasn't there a vent in that room too?

As soon as the thought occurred to Shuichi he forcefully extinguished it.

_ Not my case.  _ He reminded himself.

Then he turned, nodded to the officer, and walked out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: we good I think  
> Tch. Millennials. Always looking at their phones instead of watching out for thieves stealing light bulbs after being interrogated by the international police force. Absolutely disgusting.  
> I quibbled back and forth on how to arrange this chunk of chapters, so sorry for the extremely short pages lol. Last part of the Milan Chapter comes out Thursday. We're kind of heading towards the close of what I would call Act I of this fic.


	22. Milan Part 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi keeps the blood where it's supposed to be and everything else too.

Kokichi Ouma sat in the back seat of one of DICE's get away cars with a fresh bandage wrap on his head, slurping street vendor Gelato and trying to convince himself this was another win. Sure, the heist went well. Rook, King, and Queen had been on vent duty with him and had managed to sweep up his unfinished light fixture nabbing route. They were actually about to pick Rook up from the final rendezvous point right that second.

Which brought Kokichi to the discrepancies indicating he may be suffering a loss here. 

For starters, no one was smiling. They had just pulled off a major haul and nobody was happy about it. Kokichi thought that if he got into the car where no one had seen him go splat from ceiling to floor he wouldn't have to deal with this, but Queen, King, and Bishop were really out here acting like he had died or something. He didn't even have a concussion! They did all the tests! King checked him out like forty times, he just cut himself on the edge of the broken vent!

But Bishop was stone faced behind the wheel and Queen kept pausing the tikkertap of his fingers on the keyboard to look back at Kokichi. Even King was just sitting there trying not to stare at him. Kokichi could tell he was worrying about him because if King wasn't worrying about him then he would be texting Rook. Those two were insufferable. Did he say insufferable? He meant inseparable. Like they always say next to each other when they could and texted each other the entire time they couldn't. If King was texting them it meant he was looking for emotional support because he was worrying about Kokichi but thought that he should try and make sure Kokichi didn’t know he was worrying about him, which was annoying as hell.

They weren't looking at him like their boss right now, they were looking at him like their kid brother.

He tried not to let that turn his stomach. He had gelato left to put in there, after all.

Ok, them thinking he was weak for bleeding out wasn’t the only option here. Maybe they were just antsy to be done with this heist.

Kokichi couldn’t really argue with that sentiment, though. Not because this one was a trash fire, even though it kind of was, but because he wanted to get onto the next one. Once they picked up Rook, they could figure out where they were going next and Kokichi would have another chance to match wits with the detective. With Kokichi's big screw up today it had only been due to Spades and Clubs's intervention that he hadn't gotten caught. Saihara was right on his tail and Kokichi still had no idea how he was doing it. It was like a puzzle, like an actually hard one. Kokichi spent a few moments thinking up possible methods, crossing out a few, and sorting the rest of them into piles based on likelihood in his head.

He only realized he had been silently spacing out for six minutes when the car stopped. He heard the trunk open and close 

King scooted over into the middle seat and Rook came in to sit on the right hand side behind Queen. Kokichi thought about that for a second, because King had automatically assumed that he should be the one to move to the middle seat. Did it speak to Kokichi’s authority that it wasn’t even a consideration that he should move over to let Rook into the car, or did it speak to their interpretation of his fragility? Well, Kokichi was never asked to move over in the back seat. Then again, he usually sat in the front. Wait, wasn’t he in the seat behind the driver? There was a gif set online somewhere where two white guys are in a car and one explains to the other how the seat behind the driver’s is the safest seat in the car. Had everyone subconsciously thought of that gif set when they sat down in the car? Or were they merely following a pattern of behavior because Kokichi was never asked to move over when someone got in the car. In fact he was never asked to move over at all, not even when he was taking up a lot of space on the couch. Again, that could be a sign of his inherent authority. Except maybe it didn’t mean anything because DICE members asked each other to move over as a sign of antagonism and they just didn’t antagonize him like that. Were they afraid of him? Or maybe King just scooted over because Rook was coming in on his side-

Wait, rewind. Were they afraid of him?

Kokichi rethought the silence that had encompassed their ride thus far. Now that he reconsidered, the silence had almost seemed anticipatory, as if something were weighing on their minds more pressing than fresh banter or celebration. He had thought they were just anxious to finish off the operation, but now that Rook had stowed the goods and was safely in the car, the tense anticipation of something to come still hung heavy in the air.

As the car started back up, Kokichi noticed Rook and King exchange a glance. Bishop checked the rear view window at a suspicious angle. Rook’s hand went over the shoulder of the passenger seat, obviously palming something they were handing to Queen.

Kokichi spun a wheel in his head. Get out of the car? Confront them? Change the topic? Make them feel so bad for him they have to drop everything? Strike fear into their hearts of what his reaction would be towards untoward news? Maybe he should do a food crime to make them realize he was fine? Except he had finished his gelato, so what was he supposed to do? Eat the paper cup his gelato was-

Oh, oops.

While Kokichi had been considering what to do, it turned out he had also been methodically folding the finished gelato cup in his hands. Now, it was in his mouth.

Wow, he hadn’t thought this out, huh? He was trying to look _less_ like a person with brain damage, not _more_. Well, too late to take the paper out of his mouth, he had already committed to the bit.

Kokichi pretended not to notice that everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch him with dawning horror as he chewed the former bowl to pulp in his mouth. It still tasted a little chocolatey. Mostly in an unsatisfying way, though. You know how when you eat the last bit off your spoon and you end up tasting mostly the spoon which just leaves you wishing you had more ice cream and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Except instead of a spoon it was this paper bowl. He felt the fibers dampen and rip apart under his teeth. The gnashing filled the car with sound.

Then he swallowed. 

The car was once more filled with a petrified silence, this time on Kokichi’s terms.

“You four have been scheming behind my back.” He announced, emptying the car of silence with the sound of his voice.

At Kokichi’s words, everyone in the car flinched into an avoidant position. Bishop took the car out of park and started driving, Queen went back to typing on his computer, and King leaned as far away as he could from Kokichi without unbuckling.

Rook was the last player standing and braved looking Kokichi in the eyes.

“Uh. So.” They started roughly. “We just thought that….”

“I knew what you thought as soon as you volunteered for the last rendezvous point this morning.” Kokichi interrupted, bluffing wildly, “Just show me what you got out of it.”

“Just one sec, boss I’m uploading it to the computer.” Queen muttered, probably dragging around files from the SD card Rook had handed him. When he finally did turn the laptop around to show Kokichi, an audio player was open. He also noted on the task bar that file explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Fieldwire were open but minimized.

Kokichi grabbed the computer and put it in his lap before pressing play.

“Well the only thing from the airport you need are logs of ticket purchases and the security footage from the gates if those aren’t enough.” It took Kokichi a couple seconds to recognize the voice. “DICE is an organization of ten people, so you're always looking for a bulk purchase of 9 to 10 tickets at the same time, although they can be from different airports... ”

Kokichi opened Fieldwire. It was the program that DICE used to share blueprints with one another. Queen had started a new project that had been shared only with Bishop. He opened it.

“It doesn't matter who the tickets are purchased by or what identities are attributed to them, only that they're purchased at the same time.”

It took Kokichi a few moments to figure out what exactly he was looking at.

“I say 9 or 10 tickets because sometimes DICE members will infiltrate the flight crew.”

They were blueprints for a plane.

“Like in Paris” A new voice cut into the recording.

“Like in Paris” Shuichi replied.

There was a minute left on the recording. That was how long Kokichi had to figure out what the hell was going on here and what his response should be.

Detective Saihara using information from airports had been a possibility that crossed his mind before, but Kokichi hadn’t highlighted it any more than his other theories, which ranged from secret spy gear, to omniscience, or to just plain old random chance.

Obviously the same could not be said for those of his cohort. They had suspected public air transport was the root cause of their encounters with the Detective long enough for Queen to draw up these blueprints and recruit Rook to bring evidence for some sort of pitch they were planning.

They had figured the detective out before him.

Kokichi had thought of the detective’s successes as challenges, exciting roadside attractions to disrupt an otherwise monotonous road trip through life. How had he not stopped himself even once during the past month to ask himself how they looked to the rest of DICE? To his subordinates, Saihara’s successes seemed less like fun interruptions and more like real obstacles towards goals they all commonly held. In other words, setbacks revealing failures in Kokichi’s plans.

The worst thing was that Kokichi wanted to be angry at these four for this intervention bullshit. Angry that they took away some bit of mystery solving fun from him. Angry that they wanted to take away something that he had felt good about. Angry that they were undermining his authority by going behind his back.

But he wasn’t going to be angry. It was a stupid, pointless thing, his anger. 

Being a supreme leader of ultimate evil isn’t all tulips and tirades. Everything Kokichi did needed to have a purpose, because he knew that DICE were always watching him, looking to him, making judgements and changing their perceptions of him in their minds. 

What would being angry here accomplish? It would only strengthen their impression of his sudden unreasonableness. Even if he explained his motives, they didn’t hold up very well upon inspection. What was that Boss? You’re so bored by us that you feel the need to endanger us by playing mind games with a boot licking private eye while we do all the work? Oh yeah, we totally understand. Wait right there while we never fully trust you with anything ever again.

If anything DICE had a right to be angry at him. What had he been doing these past few weeks? How had they figured out this plane thing before him?

Was there some part of him that was actively sabotaging himself? A part that wanted him to fail just for the thrill of it? Maybe he had known how Saihara was really tracking them, but had just ignored the obvious answer because he didn’t want the mystery to be over yet. 

How could his friends trust him if he didn’t even trust himself?

Kokichi had ten seconds to wrap up this train of thought before the recording was finished. No more questions, only answers, lets go.

The plans for the airplane were by all means exactly what DICE would be looking for in a plane. It was small enough as to not require a massive amount of runway space but large enough to house everyone comfortably. There were some rather intricate illustrations of those convertible mechanisms that Queen had gotten really into earlier that year. How long had he been planning thi- no questions. Fold out tables, couches, a TV, things that could turn a vehicle into an on the go hideout in the blink of an eye. Kokichi estimated the total cost of everything to come out to around ¥1,190,401,200. Which is. A lot of money. But most of that money would probably be for the engine, which if you buy legally would be around a billion yen. If he factored out buying legally, the rest of the blueprint would probably cost around ¥1,081,200, a much lower figure. Renting a hangar would cost a little less, but that price was more flexible depending on what Bishop said their monthly earnings were. 

Kokichi googled ‘Japan Aerospace.’ He was in luck, the first thing that popped up was an article about a new JAXA mission.

The recording stopped. 

Showtime.

Kokichi let them breathe in the silence a bit.

Then, when they were good and nervous, he enacted his plan.

“Bishop, tell Queen how much we earned this month.” He requested calmly.

Bishop replied readily, “About ¥2,000,000, Boss!”

Whoa. What? Were they really making that much a month? Kokichi supposed they had been robbing high security locales on a weekly basis, but somehow he had still viewed their team as barely scraping by. What was even the point of the heists anymore if they-

No time for questions, Kokichi had to use that figure right now.

“Do you know what that figure means, Queen?” Kokichi asked, knowing that Queen never thought about the monetary cost of his projects for more than three seconds.

“Uh… Money?” Yeah, okay, Kokichi needed to remember not to target Queen too much, even though he seemed to be the ringleader of this insurrection. That would only serve to force the other members of DICE to pick a side, which was not the ideal dynamic of a ten person group.

“It’s exactly how much money we would need to rent a hangar and build an airplane covertly in Kagoshima next month.” Kokichi clarified.

“... Uh boss,” Bishop interrupted hesitantly, “I hate to contradict you there, but most airplanes would cost a hundred times that-”  
“I’m not talking about how much it would take to build most airplanes.” Kokichi interrupted the interruption he had expected to occur. “I’m talking about how much it would take _us_ to build an airplane.”

Kokichi then turned the laptop back around to show Queen the article about the manned launch to the ISS happening next week. He scrolled down to a picture of the engine taken at the launch site in Tanegashima. When Queen’s eyes lit up and King let out a sigh of relief, Kokichi knew that he had gotten away with it.

He managed to play off this whole month-long debacle as a waiting game, pretending that he had the very same understanding and intentions as the rest of them since the start of the month.

They’d get on different planes, booked at different times to the international airports in Tokyo, and then ship out to the JAXA launch site on Tanegashima, fuck things up a little and steal some rocket level engines. And Kokichi would stuff down the emptiness that curled in his gut at the lost prospect of a very interesting adversary.

… empty, huh?

Why would cutting his losses make him feel empty? Why-

No questions.

…

He should get some more gelato. Things were good when he was eating gelato.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Paranoia, Being Perceived, Eating something that should not be eaten, Poor impulse control  
> Hmm took me a sec to publish this because it took me a bit to read through the warnings. This is the last chapter in the Milan section! I'll be updating Tumblr too.


	23. Up and Away Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maki checks in with her best friend and maybe apologizes except actually he's an idiot and why does she even bother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section of chapters has a bit fewer parts than Milan, so I'll be releasing them one at a time.

[Log of Text Messages from Maki Harukawa’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Did you touch down at Haneda yet?

From: Principal Emo

Yeah

A while ago actually

I’m actually on the train home right now

Which I guess is a little silly considering I’m coming right back over tomorrow

But also I definitely need to sleep in my own bed at least once before meeting people Kaito works with

From: Me

Ugh

Meeting people

From: Principal Emo

Yeah

Especially meeting people with Kaito “What’s your favorite blood type?” Momota

From: Me

Hey that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about

And your description is completely accurate, continue

From: Principal Emo

Ugh sorry that was mean

I’m mean today and I don’t like it

I need coffee :(

From: Me

Or, you know

A decent night’s sleep

From: Principal Emo

Too hard

From: Me

Oh, you’re right, taking care of yourself is too hard

Back to relentlessly roasting Kaito it is

From: Principal Emo

What no

I’m not roasting him

I’m just

Trying not to be mad at him because the only reason I have to be mad at him is that I’m going to miss him while he’s on his mission and I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me he was going on the mission soon enough that I had time to ease into missing him and if I’m just angry at him about that then I’ll be missing him when he’s here so I should try and not be angry at him so that I don’t let time with him go to waste while he’s not in space yet

That makes sense right?

From: Me

I mean feel about it how you wanna feel

But I’d just be mad at him if I were you

From: Principal Emo

:(

From: Me

*>:(

From: Principal Emo

*<:(

From: Me

What is that

A party hat?

From: Principal Emo

No its like

Concerned eyebrows

From: Me

What are you concerned about?

From: Principal Emo

Right now? Or in general?

Because right now I’m worried that people on the train are giving me weird looks because my suitcase is taking up too much space

But like in general I fear that I am somehow secretly inadequate according to an unclear set of standards that only exist in my own mind

From: Me

Cool

Well not cool actually

You want me to give you a ride to the open house so that you don’t have to take the train again tomorrow

From: Principal Emo

I would actually very much appreciate that

I know that the lines under the Towa bridges have the newest trains and the most up to date security and all

But also there’s just a lot of people on trains and places to hide knives one would use for a train stabbing and even thought that’s super unreasonable maybe it’s not that unreasonable because we have a lot of stabbings in proportion to other countries but also we have a low homicide rate

From: Me

Ah so you don’t just want to carpool for my charming company

From: Principal Emo

If you’re trying to be sarcastic let me just say your company is genuinely more charming than the motley crew of characters one would expect on the Towa to Tanegashima line at ten in the morning

From: Me

Even though my car has the same amount of places to hide knives?

From: Principal Emo

Yeah but those knives are for your purposes and not train stabbings

From: Me

My purposes?

From: Principal Emo

You know what I mean

From: Me

Yeah I do

Also 

While I do not want to validate your fear of train stabbings via the association of an abrupt subject change

I’ve been meaning to say for a while that I am sorry that I don’t trust your detective work more often

Well I don’t know about more often

What I mean is

I think that you are a good detective

Even when you say stuff that obviously sounds stupid

And if I implied a different stance through my words or actions

Then I regret those words and/or actions

From: Principal Emo

What?

Oh are you talking about what you told me before I went to Paris

From: Me

Yeah

I mean I don’t think I’m in the wrong when I say clowns stealing toilets from the louvre is a stupid premise for a crime

But I guess criminals are stupider than popular media and common sense would lead me to believe

And I think I should have believed in you more

But also I think I was right that you need a vacation and you haven’t taken one yet and I think that’s not great for you either

From: Principal Emo

Oh um

I guess not?

From: Me

And Kaito told me you’re not allowed to chase the clowns anymore

So maybe you should take a break now

From: Principal Emo

Well

I feel like in a way following the DICE case was a break?

Because I essentially didn’t get any cases done the whole time I was working it

Which means I’ll have catching up to do when I get back to the office

From: Me

Not if I kill you first

From: Principal Emo

Sorry, we’ll have to fit that in later 

If you kill me then I’ll be even more behind

From: Me

Your eyeballs better be behind your eyelids at 8pm today or else I’m taking them

From: Principal Emo

Taking what?

From: Me

Your eyeballs

From: Principal Emo

No I need those

From: Me

Then hide them because I’m coming for you

From: Principal Emo

Okay, maybe I’ll sleep a little tonight

From: Me

You better still be sleeping when I get to your house

I’ll be there 8:30

From: Principal Emo

Maki if you want me to sleep at 8pm then that means you want me to sleep for 12 and a half hours

From: Me

Did I fucking stutter

From: Principal Emo

<:(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Poor sleep habits, Mild threatening of bodily harm  
> Shuichi's name is "principal" in Maki's phone because a principal is security personnel lingo for a protective interest.  
> It'll probably be made more clear in later chapters, but this AU has a version of Towa City, (the fictional island city depicted in Ultimate Despair girls.) In my understanding of it there are a circuit of bridges around the islands off the southern coast of the Kagoshima prefecture, including Tanegashima, Towa, and surrounding islands.


	24. Up and Away Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi is on a plane. Now where have I heard that fic premise before...

Kokichi Ouma's flight from the Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy to the Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan was the first time he had ever been on a plane by himself. He had done that on purpose when organizing the flight groups yesterday. Ace and King had suggested that groups be made up of twos and threes to avoid "unnecessary danger," which Kokichi heard as avoiding "letting our boss eat paper and be in vents." Naturally Kokichi responded that it was a positively splendid suggestion, considering he had come up with it already, and he had obliged by it, organizing them into four groups with Kokichi's own group including Queen and Jack. Except somehow they had booked tickets for the wrong flight. Oooh noooo, how could that be? And Queen had been the one to book the tickets too…

Kokichi supposed that he hadn't quite thought this whole being on a plane alone thing all the way through when he was hacking into the airline's online ticket system last night. It seemed now, in the daylight of sitting in the window seat of aisle 22 watching the clouds stroll listlessly across the sky so that he wouldn't have to look at the lady next to him paint her toenails, that there was nothing overtly beneficial about the lack of a familiar audience to his exploits. Sure, it was nice that he could have his blue eyes white dragon on the plane with him in his pocket instead of hidden within the checked bags, but what was the point of it if there was no one to duel with?

Basically he was bored.

But also weirdly not motivated to do anything to end the boredom. Which seemed counterintuitive, because not being bored was his whole deal. Then again maybe having a whole deal was counterintuitive to his supposedly liquid personality. If he wanted to stir things up maybe he should indulge this part of himself that wanted to be boring because then that would vary from his constant need to not be boring, which in excess could be viewed as boring. Then again, changing things about his personality just to avoid an arbitrary standard of boring-ness would also be pretty boring, wouldn’t it?

He tried to think of what the Kokichi who didn't want to be bored with all of his being would do right now. Maybe he would turn around and just start picking apart the insecurities of miss "my toes need to be pink for the beach!" over here until she started crying and jumped out of the plane. Then again, he didn't trust his brain not to imprint onto the next person who had long eyelashes and who he thought might fuck up his whole deal if he let it wander free into the dangerous world of airplane small talk. Sure, he could steal something or break something or just cause some sort of problem on purpose, but, very concerningly, it didn't seem like he wanted to. 

It just... seemed like a hassle right now, to think about things and scheme. If he was the maitre d' of mischief then what was the point of it if there wasn’t someone important's perceptions to attend to?

So his brain was left here, grasping at straws, rewatching episodes of Detective Conan in his head, and wondering where he went wrong with the whole dashing phantom thief thing.

It also felt like there was something he was supposed to be doing that he was forgetting to do but he didn't have a lot of time to think about it, what with the recently discovered antique fabregé egg being stolen from the Suzuki Modern Art Museum in Osaka and all. How did Kaitou Kid do it?

Oh, wait, Kokichi knew what this feeling reminded him of. It felt something like being twelve again. Back when DICE was just around a year old and they were still living in that apartment in Hokkaido. They were barely scraping by at that point. Spades and Clubs were in junior high, still seriously considering going back to the old home. All the other teens were still in highschool, except for King, who was just starting nursing school, and Ace still had their first job with that phony resume Kokichi made them. Wait, they hadn't even come up with their code names yet had they? Yeah, they still called him Ouma-sama back then. 

That seemed kind of silly, looking back on it. While everyone was at school or work, Kokichi would stay in that little apartment and watch anime for hours, sometimes making nasty little bills disappear through some light, white collar crime. Well, it wasn't always anime he watched while committing tax fraud. Sometimes he would watch game shows or browse the internet while sending emails that would topple companies in just the right way so that rice cakes would be on sale the next week. He memorized a lot of different security detail layouts while lazing around and rerouting rubber horse mask deliveries to the CEO of the Towa corporation because their stupid TVs were too expensive. He also played a lot of video games. Like… a lot a lot. Most of his time was spent playing video games now that he thought of it...

Recalling those times now felt like looking down at half of a person. Or more like looking back at someone who didn't know he was a person yet.

Except now he was a person and he knew that he was one and he was on a plane by himself because he wanted to sulk defiantly. Wait sulk? Sulking? Was that what he was doing?

Well yeah, maybe he was a bit bummed about Saihara. He hadn't been able to think about that earlier because if he thought about the pit of disappointment sapping in the back of his head it might suck the rest of him in too and then he'd be no use to anyone. But now he was alone and it didn't matter how he felt about anybody and somehow he was still confused by it. 

Maybe Saihara just wasn't the hot shit Kokichi thought he was. Actually, Kokichi was probably just being dumb for expecting more. Or, on the other hand, Saihara might just be doing things the right way. Tracking an internationally traveling thief through flight records was logical, but somehow knowing how the trick was done made it lose a little bit of magic. Or all of it, seeing as magic isn't real and all. Maybe Kokichi had just been excited by the possibility that Saihara had presented, and thus blew his minor deductive talent out of proportion.

Obviously whatever had made Saihara so interesting to him was of no consequence now, because the detective wouldn't be able to find them with his little method this time, what with DICE staggering out the ticket buying and all. He wasn't even going to leave a note to Interpol this time around. And so the semi-epic story of Shuichi v. Kokichi would end here.

Then Kokichi could just keep leading DICE in heists. Forever. He guessed. He didn't know, actually, what the long term plan was vis a vis their ever escalating chain of petty thefts. Bishop had said they made ¥2,000,000 this month. Kokichi didn't even know how much they had saved up in out of country bank accounts. It seemed like too much.

What was he supposed to say about that to DICE though? Ok guys, we’re making too much money actually, time to slow it down a bit and face the fact that we've wasted our young lives on being only mildly disruptive to but somehow somewhat supportive of the institution of capitalism.

Then what would happen after that?

When he started planning these heists, Kokichi had never really thought of an “after” to becoming an internationally wanted thief. He had seen it as the end goal. The destiny career. 

How do you end that?

Maybe he should just pull a Ryo from GX except instead of a heart condition killing him he could just jump off a-

“Ladies and gentlemen,” The crackling voice of the Captain over the plane intercom interrupted the train of thought Kokichi was having as well as where he was in his mental Detective Conan Kaito Kid best hits Marathon, “As we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you.”

Uh. What? This was a twelve hour flight and that sounded an awful lot like a landing announcement. Was the Captain on crack or someth-

Kokichi realized that the sky outside the window he had been spacing the fuck out through was dark now. Even more telling of the passage of time, though, was the fact that he was on episode 703 now, the train one where Kaitou Kid disguises himself as a maid.

In order to function like a real living person who experienced the passage of time, Kokichi banished anime from his brain.

Okay, not thinking about anime anymore… thinking instead about what to do when not on the plane….

Right, he was supposed to wait at the baggage claim until Rook, King, Queen and Jack’s flights came in. Then they would drive to the rendezvous in central Tokyo where they would meet the members who landed at Haneda instead of Narita. Then they would head to the JAXA launch site on one of the islands in the Kagoshima prefecture and Kokichi would lay out the heist plan he came up with on... the…. plane….

Oh... he forgot to do that, didn’t he?

…

See, who needed a nemesis when Kokichi had self foiling down to a science?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Focus issues, self doubt, unpleasant self reflection  
> I've never watched Detective Conan so I had to reference the wiki just because I feel like it's the kind of show Kokichi would've watched.


	25. Up and Away Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi discovers that actually maybe not sleeping is a bad thing.

Shuichi Saihara really meant to sleep last night. He really did. He went through the whole thing too, brushing his teeth, putting on a sleep t-shirt, and lying down in the bed. Yet somehow his brain never got the message that it was time to shut down.

Instead, it compulsively lit up with anxiety, which began dueling it out with the half hearted self reassurances he postulated to pretend he was coping.

The afternoon before, Shuichi had returned to the small building which served as his dual purpose home/office to find a slew of missed phone calls and letters. He spent three, gut-wrenchingly guilt-ridden hours sorting through everything from distress calls from potential clients, some well wishes from clients he had been following up with, and worst of all extremely distressed calls from clients he had failed to follow up with in wake of the DICE case.

He felt like the stupidest, most pathetic excuse for a detective on the face of the earth. He knew that he shouldn’t feel that way, but how could he not come to that conclusion with all the evidence that lay before him? Every call and letter was from a person that Shuichi had failed to help because he had somehow decided vainly pursuing international thieves was something only he could do. Maybe early on it had seemed like the logical step to pursue the thieves where interpol couldn’t. Shuichi had just come off of a big bust in the organized crime sector of Towa City, tracing back a series of revenge killings at the behest of a secretive swordswoman, and had been passively keeping up with the DICE case on the side. When he had managed to get his hands on one of the encoded letters sent to Interpol, he was certain DICE was going to hit the Smithsonian, so he and Kaito had gotten on a plane to America. And then they didn’t catch the thief and obviously that was Shuichi’s fault because the evidence was all in his hands if he had only been fast enough… So he got the next letter and pursued the thieves to Paris and he got even closer and when he failed it was even more obviously his fault because he should’ve been smart enough to notice an internationally wanted thief sitting literally right next to him. And then some how he had decided that? Stealing plane records was the next logical step? How did he even get there? It was so obviously over the line… But would he really have been satisfied, then, if he had just given up on the truth? Was he really satisfied now? He couldn’t possibly-

It didn’t matter whether he was satisfied or not. Not everything was about him. He had his own job to do here in Towa City and he had forgotten that for about a month and a half to chase after a group of essentially harmless thieves. There had been four murders in Towa City since then! And Shuichi knew that because four people had called him to investigate them! And Shuichi was aware that people would be calling him about violent crime! And he had seen the evidence that the thieves had a zero casualty count! And yet somehow he still had to have Agent Ishimaru spell it out for him that he should’ve just stayed home!

Okay he was freaking out a bit, things were fine. Interpol was going to take care of DICE now. It wasn't Shuichi's case. He needed to calm down. Stop trying to convince himself there was more to the case. Why would he think he knew the case best when he worked on it for less than half a hear? Interpol had been tracking criminal activity suspected of the organization for nearly a decade now. Then again maybe that was a point against interpol. What if they were in- 

Stop! No! Not his case! Stop being suspicious!

Shuichi had other things to focus on now. He had managed to get into contact with most of the people who had left him messages, and to make up for lost time he had decided to try and take up a few cases at a time. Except contrary to his own self-conceited beliefs there were more detectives in Towa City than just him, and everyone who had called him about a case had managed to hire someone else already. 

He tried to convince himself this was a good thing, as he lay awake at night. Everything was fine. He wasn’t failing anyone. There were so many other capable detectives in Towa city. No reason to be concerned.

Yeah, nobody needed him, the pathetic detective he was anyway. He hadn’t even managed to get close to catching DICE’s leader, let alone the nine other members of the group…

Well maybe he had gotten pretty close. He remembered grappling with the thief in Taipei and Milan. The close contact with the pilferer of his pursuit only made Shuichi’s own incompetence more frustrating, his mistakes made more obvious in the light of hindsight.

He really wanted to know why-

Not his case. God what an idiot. What had Dr. Iruma diagnosed him with after the thief escaped? Ah that’s right, shit for brains.

… That reminded him, he should follow up with the Idabashi labs people. He had gotten so caught up in making sure he stayed on DICE’s tail that he forgot to even perform the most basic courtesy in his practice as a detective. Being able to check up with clients, bystanders, and victims without risking a witness tampering charge was one of the main benefits of being a private detective versus being a police detective. When he had started his private practice Shuichi had promised himself that now that he could put the people involved in a case before the case itself he would do so to the best of his ability. He usually took much better care to address concerns of breaking and entering victims, what had he been thinking leaving the labs immediately to pursue DICE? Dr. Iruma had still been uncertain if her friend would recover from being shut down right in front of her! Shuichi was shocked at his own behavior. It was the kind of awful thing he would have pulled as a reckless teen detective, pursuing the truth without regard for who he accused or lied to along the way. The resurfacing of this behavior seemed appalling to him now.

He should call Idabashi labs right away to apologize.

It was this thought that finally stirred him from his half-awake stupor at 4 AM. At realizing the time, the part of Shuichi’s brain that was still capable of higher reasoning decided that calling would be rather rude at the hour, but he was too anxious he’d forget to call at all if he postponed now to abandon the idea altogether. In compromise, he took out his laptop and began drafting a letter to Dr. Iruma instead, expressing his regrets and apologies of every little thing he could think of. The broken windows, the used bomb, the cup of coffee he had made in her kitchen without asking…

He was typing and retyping the sign off at the end of the letter (Sincerely was a good stand bye but not very personal? Concernedly? Too personal. Thank you for your time? Ugh not the right tone) when he heard the knock at the door. 

Shuichi blinked, breaking the trance-like state that he now realized had led him to write a four page letter. He looked at the grandfather clock on his mantle. It read 10:31 AM. Which meant it was actually 8:27 AM because that clock was 2 hours and 4 minutes fast and Shuichi was too afraid he might break it to try and fix it.

Maki had promised to pick him up at 8:30 so by process of logical deduction Shuichi could safely assume that it was her outside, coming to bully him for being sleep deprived.

Sure enough, the sound of the spare key he’d given her and Kaito could be heard jiggling in the door knob. Maki opened the door.

The desk Shuichi was working at was in his client reception area, which was unfortunately immediately in view of anyone opening the door. Maki locked eyes with him almost instantly, and the look in hers was that of disappointment.

“And here I was thinking you might actually be asleep.”

“Uh. Sorry.” Shuichi said, closing his laptop. Then he opened it again. “Hey if you were apologizing to someone for not catching a burglar in their home/place of work and then leaving while their friend was sick so that you could chase said crook to another continent, would you sign the letter ‘sincerely’ or with something more like ‘once more expressing deepest apologies...”

Maki frowned, coming in and closing the door. “I’m not good at apologies. Those both sound polite but, knowing you, you probably didn't do something you would actually need that level of politeness to apologize for.”

“Um.” Shuichi went with ‘deepest apologies, -Shuichi Saihara.’ “Better safe than sorry?” He hit print. The printer his laptop was connected to was upstairs in the office where he kept his case files, so he had to run up the stairs to grab the printed letter.

Maki, seeming to sense he was going to need a second to put his four page letter in an envelope, sighed and came into the building from the entryway. She took off her shoes, heading towards the kitchen in the next room over.

When Shuichi got back down stairs with his four page apology letter safely tucked away in an envelope with a nice international stamp on it, he came into the kitchen to find Maki unplugging his coffee maker.

Both took a moment to register what one another was holding in their hands. Then they both frowned disapprovingly.

“Maki come on…” Shuichi protested weakly. “I don’t want to fall asleep at the JAXA open house.”

“Shuichi you’re at ten-page-apology-letter crazy right now and you think caffeine is going to help you?”

“Yes.” Uh. Wait. Was that healthy? “Maybe.” Probably not. “It’s only four pages.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Okay Shuichi was not on the winning side of logic here that much was clear. But still…

“Okay you win.” Shuichi relented, moving toward the kitchen counter as if to set down the envelope in his hands.

The second he dropped it, he made a mad lunge for the coffee maker cord. Maki effortlessly pulled it out of the way and grabbed his wrist, twisting him into a lock and then bringing him to a pin on the ground.

“What was the plan there?” She asked. Was it just him or did she sound bemused? He couldn’t really look at her face to garner her expression because his own face was currently smashed against the tile of his own kitchen.

“No plan.” Shuichi admitted through a mouthful of the floor. “Only caffeine withdrawal.” 

“Okay.” Shuichi felt his center of gravity flip once more, “You’re sleeping in the car.” Shuichi realized that Maki had scooped him up into a princess carry too late to actually do anything about it. 

“Hey!” Shuichi protested, a little indignant. 

Being close friends with Maki Harukawa came with the knowledge that you were going to be treated like you weighed less than a ragdoll from time to time. She had a tendency to muscle her way through social interactions if at all possible. Her significant other just gave her a compliment she didn’t know how to deal with? Punch him. That guy at work wouldn’t stop talking to her about his fucking car? Walk through a door and close it in his face if he tries to follow. Her best friend wants to make a series of regrettable decisions? Physically prevent him from doing so because he is easier to lift than a handful of grapes. 

Shuichi had been friends with Maki for about seven years now, and he knew this all well enough, but that didn’t mean he had to go down without a fight. “Maki I have to get my letter to the-”

“Shuichi when you get back to that letter tomorrow morning you’ll be embarrassed you even wrote it.”

Okay, maybe Shuichi would go down without a fight. Maki made a good point, Shuichi was very often embarrassed by things he himself did while off his daily recommended prescription of z’s and or caffeine. 

“Okay! I give! You’re right.”

“I know.” Maki had gotten to the front door and seemed to be puzzling out how to open it with her elbow.

“Here I can walk by myself.” Shuichi made a move to roll out of Maki’s arms, but she was still gripping his shoulder in place.

“Walk to the car by yourself or walk to your kitchen and feed your caffeine addiction?” She looked down at him with a stern expression that implied only one correct answer.

“The car.” Shuichi relented.

“Alright then.”

Maki set him down and opened the door while he grabbed his coat from the closet. 

She gave him another look.   


“What is it?” Shuichi thought she was scrutinizing his appearance, so he mentally did the same. “Oh! I forgot to do my eyes-” Today his morning routine had been: get out of bed, go to computer, write apology letter, whereas usually it went: get out of bed, apply eyeliner, worry about inadequacies, drink coffee, feel marginally better. Shuichi had skipped the second step, and he was about to rush to the bathroom to correct it, but Maki grabbed his arm.

“Shuichi we’re going to Tanegashima in August. It’s 30 degrees there. Your eyes are going to melt. Along with the rest of you.”

Shuichi took a moment to realize that Maki herself was wearing shorts and a loose aloha shirt. Meanwhile he was standing here in his baggy sleep t-shirt, skinny jeans, and black trenchcoat.

“Uh.” Shuichi took off his coat and tied it around his waist. “Better?”

“Hmph.” Maki grumbled, walking out onto the sidewalk. “If you die of heatstroke on the way there, I’m not going to your funeral.”

“Not even if Kaito went?” Shuichi followed, locking the door behind him.

“Especially not if Kaito went.” Maki pulled out her keys and unlocked her car, which was parallel parked on the street by Shuichi’s office. “He’d cry like a baby. It would be insufferable.”

Maki’s car was an old black honda that always smelled a little like burnt sugar. With Maki, Shuichi couldn't be sure if the smell came from a baking mishap or the trace of nitroglycerin from a recently fired gun. It was probably both. On hot days the air inside was unbearably warm until the AC was turned on for at least a minute, because the seats were made of a dark, greasy pleather sort of thing that made it its mission to absorb as much heat as possible. Shuichi had a distinct memory of pressing his face against the material to avoid being shot from behind. In fact he sort of had a slideshow of bad memories associated with riding in this car on various high stake chases or on the approach of even more stressful social situations. Yet despite all that, the second Shuichi settled into the passenger seat and pulled the seat belt over himself, he felt more at home than he had pulling up the covers when he’d been trying to sleep last night.

What happened next was embarrassingly predictable. From Shuichi’s point of view it seemed like Maki started the car, he closed his eyes, and then when he opened them his face was pressed against the window and he could see the Towa Bridge Expressway zooming past him. 

The road was on the upper side of one of the bridges Towa Corp had built about a decade ago connecting Islands like Tanegashima, Yakushima, and Towa City to the mainland. On the underside of the bridges were bullet trains that ran underwater between the islands. 

Regardless of this, all roads feel the same under the wheels of a car you forget falling asleep in.

“Hghh.” Shuichi was half aware that his throat was the thing that just made that noise.

“Wow you got a whole REM cycle in there.” Maki seemed to hear his rooster cry of wakefulness despite the interference of some sort of j-pop song coming out of the car speakers. As Shuichi’s eyes adjusted to the pale daylight stinging his retinas, he could make out that his friend had her eyes fixed on the road. “That must be a new record.”

“If you’re gonna-” Shuichi realized his speech was muffled and that it was because his face was still against the window. He made an effort to sit up straight and started his sentence again, unobstructed. “If you’re going to make fun of me for sleeping the same as not sleeping then why should I even bother?”

“Because your health is your health and that isn’t beholden to my judgement.”

“Everything about me is beholden to judgement.” Shuichi muttered, still thinking miserably about his poor uncle’s good name, which he was most certainly running into the ground by having the office closed for another day. He was working a sum total of NO cases right now. Maybe he should write his uncle an apology letter too. Then again he wouldn’t want to bother him in his retirement… Who would want to have their nice day interrupted by their whining nephew? No one.

“Yeah, you should fix that.” Apparently driving for an hour and a half hadn’t changed Maki’s stance. She still had biting comments about his poor self esteem at the ready.

“Hghk.” Shuichi replied eloquently.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Maki muttered in reply.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing." Maki replied a little too quickly. She was chewing her lip. After a moment of thought she went on. "Well I guess it means something. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around it and I don't want to tell you until I have it phrased right in my mind."

"Hm. Okay."

Shuichi tried to regain faculty over his higher social functions in an attempt to discern what Maki was upset about and to make sure it wasn’t anything that he did. But while he was performing this heroic feat he closed his eyes on accident and then when he opened them again Maki was parking, presumably on the campus of the Tanegashima Space Center.

Shuichi groaned, now finding himself leaned in the opposite direction of the window. “Why does it feel like the part of my brain that produces melatonin is always waiting to get me by surprise?”

“Because you keep trying to drown it in caffeine,” Maki replied readily, seeming to have lost her contemplative mood after another hour of driving, “it’s fighting for it’s life, of course it’s going to use guerilla tactics.”

Shuichi shook the feeling back into his legs as Maki pulled into a spot. He remembered when he used to drive a lot more. When he was on the force he had access to a police cruiser, but nowadays Shuichi had trouble driving a car while he was on his own. He kept having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting pedestrians. A lot of grisly murders happened like that. Even now he could picture that guy whose head had been crushed under the wheel of a yakuza boss’s car…

“Come on, we haven’t got all day.” Maki tapped him in the arm with her fist, then got out of the car. Shuichi was going to follow suit, but he paused to check himself for eye crusties in the pull down mirror. He had just regained the mental capacity to remember he didn’t put on his eyeliner and now it was time to be anxious about his appearance again. Well, at least this would probably go better than the last time he encountered a social situation without doing his eyes. He really thought he’d be safe going to ask Keebo about the wi-fi, but he had managed to stumble into a robbery in process, which had then turned into a hostage situation, which had then turned into an all night police investigation and journalists tried to talk to him again and then Dr. Iruma was doing robot surgery and he got chewed out by Ishimaru again and-

“Shuichi?” Maki had ducked her head back into the car. “Are you coming?”

Shuichi startled out his internal anxiety tirade. “Y-yeah! Sorry.” He shut the mirror and opened the door of the car. It took a second to untangle his coat from the seatbelt, but he managed to get out and retie it around his waist.

“Hey…” Maki had locked the car and come around to his side. Her eyebrows were furrowed. “Are you alright?”

“What?” Shuichi blinked. Did he really look that bad? “No, yeah, I’m fine.” It only occurred to him he was kind of lying for no reason after he said it. “I mean, well. I’m just like. Embarrassed about not being able to see that case I was doing through all the way to the end. Like, I’m thinking about all the ways I messed it up, you know?”

Maki nodded. “Yeah. I feel that way too. About my own stuff. Sometimes. A lot of times. Actually.” Her fingers tangled into a strand of her hair. “But… Well, you know what he would say about it already, don’t you?”

Oh yeah. “Probably something like… the past is the past. What really matters is what you do now.” Just thinking about what Kaito would say made him feel better... He shook his head. “I really should just get ‘what would Kaito do’ tattooed on my brain…”

“Yeah, as long as you’re not in a haunted house.” Maki pointed out.

Shuichi laughed. “Yeah… I guess so…”

Maki looked down at her feet, still carding her hands through her hair.

“I’m… Going to miss him.” She confessed.

Shuichi suddenly felt extremely guilty. Here Maki was trying to keep his anxiety from preventing the performance of his every day functions and he had totally neglected to consider she was going through a lot right now too. Shuichi knew that Kaito had been a lifeline for Maki for a long time, and even though she was in a much better place now Shuichi would be much less of an awful friend if he had realized how much harder Kaito’s absence would hit her. 

“What’s with that expression?” She muttered. Shuichi realized he was making a very fretful face. “Ugh. Nevermind, talking about this is pointless anyway…”

“It’s not pointless!” Shuichi rebutted quickly. “Of course you’ll miss Kaito. Talking about your feelings is an important step in processing them… And you know I want to be here for you if you ever need that. I’m your friend.”

“Yeah.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “I know.” She was chewing her lip again. “Uh. Thanks. Sorry if I’ve been kind of… mother henning you today. It’s just. I don’t want to be… Alone again.”

Now Shuichi really felt like a bad friend. “Oh, Maki-”

Shuichi was interrupted by the 2012 song ‘Space Unicorn’ blasting from Maki’s phone. Whenever Shuichi heard that song, it reminded him of udon noodle soup, because that’s what he’d been eating in the college cafeteria when Kaito set it as his ringtone in Maki’s phone.  


“Ugh. I hate that song.” Maki took the phone out of her pocket. “We’ll talk later.” She told Shuichi, before answering the call.

“What is it.” Shuichi overheard Maki’s side of the conversation. “We just parked… Yeah… Where?... That’s troublesome… I’m kidding… Ok, see you there… Gross.”

She hung up.

“He says he’s waiting for us by the bus terminal at the museum. Which is on the other side of the campus.”

Oh, Kaito… “It’s like he’s making us run laps again…”

“I’ll try not to leave you behind.” Maki offered, kindly.

“Hey, maybe I’ll be able to keep pace…” Shuichi postulated. “I’ve been in a lot of chases recently.”

“You won’t be.” Maki said, already jogging in place.

“I’ll try my best…” Shuichi promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Anxiety, Insomnia, Violent imagery, Reference to gun violence, Reference to trauma  
> When you and your friend have different coping mechanisms for loss associated trauma but in a fight between them hers would win.  
> Editing this chapter reminded me how much I miss being in a car with my friends... We had some summer plans that just aren't happening right now :(  
> Also 30 degrees is hot in celsius. It's like 86 Farenheit.  
> ALSO also I'm taking four AP tests this month so updates might be a little spotty until June. I'll try to update Thursday and the Monday after that but then I'm not sure...


	26. Up and Away Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi does some dumb shit with a bag of chips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm i think that i decided that i don't like indentations on AO3, but for some reason the fic automatically indented this time so i had to go through and delete them manually. sorry if i missed some.

Kokichi Ouma found himself wondering where exactly that big old brain of his had wandered off to. He knew that by all accounts he was very good at coming up with plans on the fly. Yet for some reason the performance of the actual organ that processed his mental functions was lacking at the moment. Like it didn’t know it was supposed to be the brain of an internationally wanted criminal today. Spontaneity was supposed to mean fun for him, but for some reason this whole build a plane plan seemed more like a point of stress than anything else. Which was weird because Kokichi didn’t usually get stressed. There was just something about this heist that he wasn’t looking forward to and he couldn’t identify what exactly it was or how exactly he was supposed to get around it.

Kokichi was still trying to halfass his way to a half decent plan when DICE reunited in Tokyo. And on the drive down to the Kagoshima prefecture he had more than enough time to think about a plan. In fact he had another 15 hours. And he just… Didn’t. He just didn’t think of a plan. He just sat around pretending to be sociable and analyzing the rest of the group’s conversations and sleeping habits. He thought that maybe he was anxious about them scheming behind his back again, but realizing that he was anxious should have made the being anxious go away, so he decided that it wasn’t that. 

So when they finally did arrive at the Tanegashima Space Center in their stolen Space Center Tour bus the next morning and everyone huddled in the backmost rows of seats to hear what exactly the plan was, Kokichi had to pause for a second.

Uh. Okay. Plan time.

“You may not have noticed,” Kokichi started off after compiling some observations in his head, “But there’s an open house happening at this facility for JAXA employees and family members right now. We’re going to capitalize on that for our fakeout heist, which will be centered around the museum’s gift shop.” Right because the open house wouldn’t let them have access to the non-touristy shit. “Rook, King, Bishop, you’re going to be on that.” Ugh that wasn’t very detailed. “The fake mark is…” Fuck think of something stupid. “As many of those freeze-dried ice cream things as you can carry.” Okay that left him with 7 pieces for the real heist. “Jack, Clubs, Spades you’re on floor duty, make sure to call in suspicious personnel, we have the map of the space center in the heist planning chat.” He had remembered to do that much at least. “So spread out as much as you can.” Four pieces. “Queen, you know what you need. Get Ace to handle transport.” Should he really be delegating that much power to Queen after his little upstart? Or did it just show insecurity to not trust him? Too late to contemplate. “When you get back to the bus, text us and then take off ASAP.” The jet engine would take up most of the tour bus, so they had to get an alternative means of escape. “Hearts, you and I are going to disable security systems and get the secondary escape car.” That was something he knew how to do at least. “Any questions.”

Kokichi would usually expect a hearty “No sir!” to that concluding statement, but instead he observed a smattering of queer looks from the car full of clowns.

Hearts was the first to pipe up. “Uh, boss, your plan for disabling the security system wouldn’t happen to involve getting into the vents, would it?”

“Yeah.” There wasn’t really a better way to covertly sneak around a facility like this when their identities may be compromised. “What about it?” 

Kokichi really didn’t have time for Hearts’s whole ‘I don’t like getting vent dust on my white uniform’ thing. He would just pretend like the whole group misheard him and he assigned her to ground duty in the first place if she said she wanted to swap-

“No, I just think maybe I could handle the security system myself.” Oh. That was a new one. “There’s not really a need for you to... You know, risk yourself.”

Kokichi was suddenly made aware of the bandage that was still wrapped around his forehead. He consciously resisted the urge to graze his hand over it. He didn’t want to play into the whole damaged goods bullshit that was going on right now in terms of how his subordinates were viewing him. Then again maybe that’s exactly what he should do…

“Believe me, I’ve considered the consequences,” Kokichi compelled himself to shed a single tear, clenching his fist like a shounen anime protagonist. “And though I may be suffering great pain and personal injury… I’ll risk it if it means not letting my friends down…”

Queen rolled his eyes, seeming to buy Kokichi’s bit, but Hearts still looked concerned, and now King was getting ready to add his two cents.

“Uh, Boss.” Ugh him and his stupid Nurse’s license, “It’s really fine if you wanna stay back…” Maybe if Kokichi cried he could derail this? “Your head is still healing and if, you know, an accident happens, you could re-open it and then we might have to suture...”

No, crying would just make him look worse now. The power dynamic would make it look like he was trying to convince King to  _ let  _ him go on the heist, which didn’t make sense at all. Maybe he could slot himself into a different group? No, most elements of this plan involved being in civilian wear and that’d just remind his crew about that time he just casually let a detective get a police sketch done of him like one of his french girls. Besides, he didn’t strictly need to participate in every step of this heist anyway. Kokichi’s real goal here was to maintain the idea in his subordinates’ minds that he was not a twerp trying to find the most unreliable time to bleed out. Hmm, okay, let’s go with this then.

Kokichi flashed an incredulous grin before smothering it into an exaggerated damsel expression. “Oh,,, I hate to admit it, but you’re so right, King.” He leaned over dramatically, “Every second is torture in this frail body of mine, it’s taking all my strength just to stand here before you!” He wasn’t standing but that was probably the easiest thing he was lying about right now, “I guess I’ll just have to.. Stay here, and.. Regain my strength… While you guys do all the work.” He pulled out the handkerchief he just remembered he had and was going to blow his nose into it before he remembered at the last second it wasn’t his handkerchief. He settled for a grotesque imitation of blowing his nose instead. He lay down across the back seat in a faint. “Ohh, alas, I fear I am not long for this world…”

“I vote we leave him here to die.” Jack bought in, rolling her eyes.

“I second the motion.” That was Queen, and yeah, Kokichi had expected that much.

“Hey, since when is this a democracy?” Kokichi sat up, adjusting the fluidity of his motions to reflect perfect health once more.

“Since our boss died,” Jack wiped away a fake tear with her finger. “I miss him every day… Sometimes I even hear his voice…”

Kokichi tossed aside the handkerchief and took a bag of chips out from the seat in front of him where he had seen Bishop stash them earlier. He poured the chips into his own lap and then crumbled up the bag into a ball before throwing it at Jack’s face.

Jack, in turn, batted it away, and it hit Spades, who caught it and threw it back at Jack, who dodged, which led the bag to hit Rook instead. Rook picked it up and got ready to throw it again, but Hearts took it out of their hands, leading to Rook just throwing air at Clubs, who squealed despite nothing actually hitting him and jumped out of his seat.

Okay, success. Concern about Kokichi’s injuries had all but dissipated as Club’s reaction got a smattering of giggles. 

“Wow,” He remarked to Hearts, who was still holding the crumpled chip bag. “I’m sure a dove of peace such as yourself can handle the security system all on your lonesome.” He gestured to his lap, which was still covered in chips. “As you see I have other business to attend to.” He picked up one of the chips and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly. When he finished the first chip he issued his final direction. “You guys better get started on your assignments. I’ll be here when you need to hijack the second getaway car.”

“Yes, Boss!” Most of his crew said the words more for their ritualistic purpose of ending the team huddle rather than out of genuine enthusiasm. They collected their gear, mostly stored in beach bags and casual purses, and filtered out of the van one by one. Everyone was still in their civilian clothing, so they’d blend right in with the crowds of tourists and open-house-goers. 

And then Kokichi was alone again. Except instead of a plane he was on a tour bus. Eating chips off his lap. He got through them in about four minutes, which he estimated was about how long it would take DICE to get out of sight’s distance from the bus. When that time had passed, he licked the remaining salt and grease of his fingers and then stood up, brushing chip crumbs off his lap. Once he was clean, he picked up the handkerchief he had thrown aside earlier. He folded it up along the crease lines into a square, and put it in his pocket again. He convinced himself it was just because he wanted something to do.

He went up to the driver’s seat, sitting down. He didn’t have his license to drive a normal car, let alone a bus, but it didn’t really matter because the bus’s windows were reflective from the outside. They had parked the tour bus close to the entrance in the bus lane, so Kokichi had a good view of the people coming and going from the space center. If he had put any effort into this plan at all, he might’ve stationed Club or Spade here as a look out. Well, he guessed he was the look out now. Hah. Great.

….

BORED. He was bored again. Hgghghgfffkk. 

He considered hitting his head against the horn of the car just to do something and by “considered” he meant he tried to actually do it but missed and almost hit his head on the dashboard before stopping and realizing that was a bad idea. For one, honking the horn would just make the vehicle look conspicuous, which was not ideal for a getaway car. And then there was also the fact that his plan had needlessly included bashing his head again which could open his cut and just cause a big hassle when King got back with his whole ‘I’m a licensed practical nurse’ thing he had going on.

So, okay. No horn honking. Right. 

Kokichi took out his phone and checked Discord. The channel for heists had no new notifications. He put his phone away again.

God he was going to die in here. Wow, needy much? Shut up brain. Um.

Kokichi leaned over, smushing his chin against the dashboard, and occupied himself by looking at the passersby and picking out random details to build conspiracies about them. That guy’s shirt was untucked, untucked had eight letters in it, magic eight balls could see the future, eight balls were round, you know what else is round? An eyeball. Illuminati, natch. Next. That woman’s achilles tendon was chapped even though she was wearing sandals, which meant she wore heels a lot. Heel was something you said to train a dog. Who was trying to train the human race like dogs? The Illuminati. Next. That guy had really ugly hair. Looked like he used a lot of gel. Gel has three- wait, what?

Kokichi recognized that dumb hair style. It was almost like… No, it couldn’t be. The guy who had been with Saihara at the Smithsonian. What?

Kokichi didn’t let himself get excited until he spotted the slightly less dumb and slightly more familiar haircut on the guy standing next to him.

There was Shuichi Saihara, who was, apparently, the best detective in the world. Also, he was wearing a T-shirt, which was hilarious because he usually wore business casual button ups under his dark trench coat. Kokichi could see his arms, which were-

Wait, no, forget about his arms. How did any part of him even get here? How did he know? There wasn’t any way- Did he lie? HE LIED TO INTERPOL.

Wow, Saihara had more balls than Kokichi had originally anticipated. He should get out there and tickle them a little.

Kokichi started reformulating everything he had originally thought about this heist. If Saihara was going to buy into the phony heist he would have to get into the mix himself. How much would the detective have learned from their last bout in Milan? He knew about Kokichi’s head injury, surely. Kokichi stood up and headed for the door out of the bus. He would have to make his approach subtly, but the buffoon probably wouldn’t be much trouble to deal with. If anything he might make Saihara easier to trick. They were on the move, Kokichi would have to catch up. Was that woman in the hawaiian button up with them too? Yeah, it seemed like it. When she paused to look around, they paused too, looking back, presumably to see what was keeping her. Her eyes were scanning the crowd like she was some kind of terminator bot or something-

Every part of Kokichi froze when that gaze slipped past his. 

He saw her face in that moment. Blunt brunette bangs. A dark birthmark. Blood red eyes.

For one shallow breath, a metallic tang poisoned the air in his lungs. 

The eyes glanced unnotably over the JAXA tour bus. And then the red woman just... turned and walked away. 

Saihara followed her into the building.

Kokichi sat back down.

…

…

What the fuck was she doing here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Focus issues, food used improperly, sensory reference to blood, cliff hangar.  
> Kokichi's funny because there's a lot of times where he could just state his real opinion on things and not be argued with but he tries to side step around the possibility of the argument and ends up not getting what he wants because of it.


	27. Up and Away Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi hangs out with his friends at a pretty neat space museum. What could possibly go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current status on updates is that I'll get one more out on Thursday and then I'm in the taking tests zone until June.

Shuichi Saihara’s best, it turned out, was most certainly not enough to keep pace with Maki Harukawa in a run across the Tanegashima Space Center’s beautiful green campus. Shuichi had plenty of time to admire that beautiful green color the grass had as he stood doubled over trying to catch his breath in front of the center’s main entrance. 

Maki was standing by Kaito, breathing perfectly fine with only a modest sheen on her forehead as evidence of the run. Meanwhile, Shuichi was over here sweating through his t-shirt and trying not to let his lungs burst.

“Is he okay?” Kaito not so quietly whispered to Maki.

“He will be.” Maki replied, “He’s just an idiot who decided black skinny jeans were the way to go even though it’s the middle of the sunny season…”

“In my… Defense…” Shuichi panted out between gulps of air. “I didn’t… know… I’d be… running… today…”

“Hey man, sweat’s just another word for hard work.” Kaito claimed, coming over to pat Shuichi on the back. “Awesome effort, sidekick.”

“Thanks… Kaito…” Shuichi was still trying to suppress his aching lungs into a normal pattern of breathing.

“Hold your hands over your head.” Maki advised, “It’ll open up your chest.”

Oh right, right. Shuichi should know that by now. He moved up from his hands-on-knees-to-make-sure-he-didn’t-fall-over position to one where his arms were up with his hands on his head. Immediately he found breathing easier, although the air was just as hot and stifling as before.

“You know,” Maki was looking at Kaito now. “We wouldn’t have had to run if you had been more specific before I paid for the parking permit… You said you wanted to show us the launch spectation sites, so our car is parked all the way out there...”

“Well, yeah, I did say that…” Kaito was characteristically unflustered by the accusation, “but, then I realized it would be better to show you guys the museum building first! This way we can take our time looking at the launch viewing sites without having to worry if the museum will be open or not later...”

Shuichi wondered if that was just an excuse for Kaito changing his mind about hiking when he realized how hot it was today. Kaito had a tendency to be a little unreliable when it came to making plans with friends, but then again Shuichi also had a tendency to forgive him for that. 

Maki usually did not. So when Maki just sighed and shook her head, Shuichi took that as a signal to let Kaito off the hook on this one. 

…

It was so strange to think that in just another week, Shuichi wouldn’t be able to make any plans with Kaito at all…

Ugh. He shouldn’t think about that right now.

“Hey, what’s with the sour looks, you two?” Kaito’s words made Shuichi aware of his own conflicted expression, “Come on, I know what’ll cheer you up!” Kaito turned, walking towards the entrance and gesturing for them to follow him with a sweeping arm movement.

Shichi complied, but stopped when he noticed Maki wasn’t moving with them.

Instead, she was scanning the parking lot behind them with a dangerous look in her eyes…

“... Maki?” Shuichi asked hesitantly.

She didn’t seem to register him, but Kaito did, turning back around.

“Is something the matter, Maki Roll?” He called.

That seemed to snap her out of it. “It’s nothing.” She shook her head and started walking into the building. “Let’s go inside.”

“Hey, what’d I say about secrets?” Kaito confronted her, but he followed her through the doors anyway, Shuichi not far behind him.

“I never agreed to that…” Maki muttered, still walking. “But it really isn’t anything. I just felt like someone was watching us out there…”

Shuichi felt a chill go down his spine. He had also felt something off, but he thought it was just a him thing. He had been seeing the faces of DICE in random passerby ever since he touched down in Tokyo and it was setting him on edge even though he knew his suspicions were completely unsubstantiated. In fact there had been that big tour group of 9 or 8 people that passed them by while they were at the entrance... Could-

“Oh well, they probably were,” Kaito shrugged, “You know, I’m a famous astronaut and all.”

Oh. Yeah. Duh. Maybe the chill Shuichi had felt was just the museum’s AC …

“That isn’t…” Maki cut herself off, seeming to think better of whatever she had been about to say. “You’re probably right. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Alrighty, whatever you say, Maki Roll.” Kaito moved forward as if the issue was entirely settled and had maybe never been unsettled in the first place. “Now come on! I want to show you something!”

What Kaito had wanted to show them turned out to be a series of star maps that were up for display as a promotion for the upcoming launch. Included were larger infographics about which lights in the sky were actually satellites, but those weren’t what Kaito was interested in.

“Look!” He exclaimed, pointing at a section of one of the maps, “Right here! What do you see?”

“Stars?” Maki asked, looking mildly amused by her boyfriend’s enthusiasm.

“Well, yes but…”

“Oh!” Shuichi exclaimed, now pointing as well. “I recognize this one! It’s the beard of despair!”

He was pointing to a circle of stars that he and Maki had named after the cheek to cheek beard Kaito came back from his winter break with in their last year at Towa Community College. 

“Hey, that’s right!” Maki exclaimed.

“Why is that the only one you guys remember…” Kaito grumbled.

Come to think about it, a lot of the stars looked familiar… “Are these the stars that appear over TCC?”

“Well, it varies depending on the season, but yeah that’s what we were looking at most of the time!”

Shuichi was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. He first met Maki and Kaito when he had been doing the mandatory two years of training it took to become a Towa City police officer after he had passed the national exam. He had been disillusioned with a future in his uncle’s practice because the idea of getting paid to dig up dirt had skeezed him out, not to mention that he still had huge doubts about his own ability as a detective to earn a living off of it. A police detective had seemed like a more secure, if more restricting, job than private detective work.

Well, maybe it was more accurate to say that Kaito had met Maki and Shuichi and then decided they were all going to be friends because he said so. He used to make them meet him in the school court yard every night after dark to do exercises of various kinds. Sometimes they put aside exercise in lieu of star gazing when Kaito was in the mood.

“Hey, do you remember when Kaito told us which planets he thought were most like us?” Maki asked Shuichi, probably remembering the same times he was, “And when we asked him what planet he was, he said the sun?”

Shuichi squinted. “Oh yeah… I think I remember…” he vaguely recalled thinking that the planet Kaito assigned him was weird, but he didn’t remember why or which planet it was.

“Well, now that I know more about space and stuff, I think he was right.”

“Aww… Maki Roll.”

She smiled a little. “Yeah… The sun is a big ball of gas, just like him.”

“Hey!” Kaito smacked his chest, acting as if taken aback, but Shuichi was pretty sure he was secretly delighted that Maki admitted to knowing more about space now.

Maki laughed, “This is what you get for talking about astronomy every night…”

Shuichi remarked to himself how long it had taken for Maki’s laugh to seem commonplace in a conversation. She was really a lot more open then she had been when they spent those first few nights under the stars. It was understandable, though, considering…

“Which planets did you say we were again?” Shuichi found himself asking.

“Hm?” Kaito paused, squinting for a second in thought. “Uh… I’m pretty sure it was…”

“You said I was Mars,” Maki supplied, “And I think Shuichi was Venus.”

“Oh yeah!” Kaito made a sort of ‘That’s it!’ gesture with his palm and fist, “Maki was Mars because she tried to seem dry and uninhabitable, but there was definitely a frozen ocean in there somewhere, and Shuichi, you were Venus, because even though you thought you tried to blend in with the stars all the time, sometimes you could appear in the day as a second sun!”

Huh. That was pretty nice to say, but Shuichi wasn’t sure it was what he remembered…

“Oh, wait.” Maki interjected, “Didn’t you say something else last time?”

“Hm?” Kaito put on his ‘I’m remembering something’ face again. “Did I say… Oh yeah!” He laughed. “I said Venus suited Shuichi because Venus is the goddess of love and Shuichi’s clients keep falling in love with him!”

Shuichi suddenly remembered exactly why he had been so offended by Kaito’s characterization of him all those years ago.

Maki gave him a bemused look, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the face you made last time too...”

“Yeah, that’s because it’s a really weird thing to say about my clients Kaito…”

“Oh yeah?” Kaito grinned now that he wasn’t the one being teased, “You can’t say I’m really wrong though, bro…”

Shuichi shook his head, “A detective can’t think that way about his clients! It’s exploitative!” 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t stop them from thinking that way about you…” Maki pointed out.

“I- What- Maki-” Shuichi did not want to talk about this actually, he turned to Kaito hoping for some kind of escape, but his so-called friend just shook his head. 

“You gotta face facts some time, Shuichi. You’re a heart-throb!”

“I don’t know what you mean…” Shuichi was finding that there was nowhere to hide his face and he cursed himself for letting Kaede talk him out of wearing his hat again.

“What about that girl who gave you chocolates?” 

Oh, why had he told Maki that story?

“They were just for gratitude-”

“What about the guy who invited you on his yacht?” 

Maybe asking his friends to help him out on cases all these years had been a mistake… 

“That was to set up a trap for the-”

“The person who asked you out for dinner?”

Hghk.

“That was only to meet another contact-”  
“But then the contact didn’t show up and it was just the two of you.”

“They got in a car accident!”

 _What about the guy who pretended to be your husband on a plane?_ His own brain supplied rather unhelpfully.

*Bweeeeoop* *Bweeeeoop* *Bweeeeoop*

Shuichi had never been so grateful to hear an alarm sound off in his entire life.

Maki and Kaito stopped railing into him, looking around as if to see where the noise was coming from.

“I didn’t even know we had one of those…” Kaito muttered, barely audible over the continuing beep of the alarm. “I’m going to go ask someone what’s going on.” He declared, before storming off into a door marked ‘employees only.’

Maki, seemingly unperturbed by the sign, was about to follow him, but Shuichi grabbed her arm.

“Wait,” He said, retracing his own memory, “Come with me, please.”

“What?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere I’m more likely to get in a fight than Kaito…” Under scrutiny, Shuichi found that he didn’t recall seeing that group of suspicious tourists among the exhibits… They disappeared at the entrance, which was by the...

Shuichi started making a beeline for the gift shop, untying his coat and wrestling it onto his shoulders as he went.

“You two are so high maintenance…” Maki grumbled, following him nonetheless.

Sure, Shuichi had thought his gift shop theory was pretty on point, but when he got to the doorway of said gift shop the cartoonishly big mallet coming down over his head took him by surprise.

Maki grabbed him, pulling him back just in time. “Watch where you’re going, idiot.” She scolded him before grabbing the hammer and pulling it out of the hands holding it, which were the gloved hands of, you guessed it, a clown with a checkered scarf, standing over the doorway and poised to pounce.

This wasn’t one of the DICE members Shuichi recognized, but it seemed that they recognized him. 

“What the hell is this guy doing here?” They called back into the shop, where Shuichi realized two other DICE members were shoving freeze dried ice cream into a bag, before diving down and trying to sweep Maki’s feet from under her. Maki jumped up and tried to use the gravity of her dodge to kick the clown in the head, but the clown rolled away, hopping back up, where Maki was waiting to meet them with their own mallet in the face.

Shuichi heard a sickening crack and the clown crumpled to the floor. 

“Rook!” The leaner looking of the two members grabbing ice cream dropped his bag and ran up to help his friend.

“Maki!” Shuichi exclaimed, rather horrified at this level of violence, “They’re just thieves!” 

“What?” Maki asked, unshaken. When she saw Shuichi’s expression, she blinked as if genuinely confused. Then she straightened up in a gesture that Shuichi recognized as sheepish even though her tone remained flat as she clarified, “That wasn’t the clown’s skull, it was the hammer.” She raised the big mallet to show him the end of it, which had popped off, “This is just a toy.”

“Yeah! That don’t mean it don’t smart, lady!” The one on the floor, ‘Rook’ if their friend was to be believed, waved off the other DICE member, rubbing their face under their mask.

“Was I talking to you?” Maki fixed the clown with her patented death glare, taking the stick of the broken mallet and twirling it into a fighting ready position like a bo staff.

“Where’s your boss?” Shuichi muttered aloud. “And the rest of you for that matter…” Maybe the gift shop was a distraction, it didn’t seem like the most attention had been given to it. Then again if there were something happening further inside the facilities then Kaito’s people were probably wise to it by now, so there might not be any point in wondering...

“I dunno, ask your mom!” The bearded DICE member standing next to ‘Rook’ threw something at him.

Maki acted quickly, hitting the object dead-on with the broken mallet handle before it could smack him in the face. It burst open, and by the time Shuichi realized it was a smoke bomb his eyes were already stinging from exposure.

“Gah!” He exclaimed, hiding his face in his arm to prevent himself from inhaling the smoke.

Maki, however, ignored the smoke, pressing forward into the gift shop. 

Shuichi stayed back, blocking the doorway and tried to remember if he had seen an external entrance to the gift shop. The question was dismissed from his mind as he heard the clattering of shattering glass and remembered that these thieves had no qualms about making their own exits. When the smoke cleared, Shuichi saw that Maki was now holding the bag stuffed with freeze dried ice cream. She dropped it and started walking towards the wall of windows opposite to the entrance. She pulled back her hair and grabbed the side of the window like she was going to try and climb out the hole at the top, which the clowns seemed to have escaped out of.

Except… As Shuichi came up the steps from the entrance he didn’t see any clowns beyond the window. Remembering DICE’s knack for misdirection, Shuichi did a quick glance around the room and… There!

“Maki!” He called as he moved forward, “There’s a sliding door back by the register!”

It was open just a jar, and as Shuichi got closer he spotted the last DICE member vaulting over the balcony just outside.

Maki beat him to the door, sliding it open and hopping on the balcony. She paused for a second, then turned back to look at him. “Stay here.” She ordered, as if it had crossed her mind Shuichi might try to scale down the wall as well.

He would have found it weird that Maki would take the time to tell him something so obvious as ‘you would fall if you tried this,’ but Shuichi remembered what Maki had said to him before, about not wanting to be alone again. He nodded in an effort to reassure her. “Right, I’ll call the police.”

She seemed satisfied with this, turning around and shifting off the balcony to climb down the wall. Shuichi, in the meantime, pulled out his phone and called 110. The operator put him through to the Kukinaga substation, which was the Tanegashima police station only four minutes away from the space center. Shuichi reported what had happened, and the substation representative asked him to stay put to give a report to the officers when they arrived. He voiced acquiescence and thanked the representative before hanging up.

And then Shuichi was standing alone in a gift shop with broken glass and a bag full of freeze dried ice cream on the ground. He noticed some things he hadn’t before. For instance, it looked like the gift shop was partially divided into a sort of cafe, with a freezer full of purchasable food and tables by the windows to sit and eat. For some reason, he decided that sitting alone in a gift shop with broken glass and a bag full of freeze dried ice cream on the ground would be marginally better, so he pulled out one of the chairs, sitting at the table.

… 

It was weird how much time Shuichi sat around, waiting for things to happen. Well, maybe less weird and more just plain old pathetic… He wasn’t really the action type like Maki and Kaito were. A lot of his work as a detective was done in the aftermath of events. He was usually only trying to figure out what had already happened. This whole DICE thing was a bit of a change of pace, requiring him to be able to predict the next course of events and perhaps even stop potential crimes. Except, well, maybe he wasn’t so good at that part of it… Today was pretty clear evidence of that. This gift shop robbery was obviously a ruse covering up some sort of bigger crime. Something similar had happened in Egypt, where in order to keep one room’s artifacts secure, Shuichi had to alert the actual museum security to take care of things. Except, had that really been the right choice? The entire museum besides the room Shuichi was in were rugless because he refused to take action. Shuichi knew that staying in this gift shop would prevent it from being robbed, but he had to weigh that against the great uncertainty of what was happening elsewhere right now. It just felt shitty, knowing he could do nothing right now but wait. It had been part of the reason being a detective had yucked him out when he was a teen. For a while he had been solving exclusively murder cases, which were the worst way to be reminded his job was usually only useful after the horrible things happen… Maybe working on the DICE case had felt good because so much of the work was preventative. Predicting where DICE would strike next always gave him the hope that the next time would be the last and it would all be thanks to him… How stupid… 

A memory flashed through his head

 _“You’re really something else, Shuichi.”_ A face very close to his had said.

Maybe that was something else about the case that felt good. Chasing DICE’s leader had been light and exciting. A mystery less pursued out of a sense of requirement or needed justice, but rather because the mystery itself was genuinely intriguing. Shuichi had started out fearing that DICE may have had some sort of tie to organized crime or some sort of international conspiracy, but… After investigating into such ties and looking at all past robberies attributed to them, Shuichi had turned up nothing. It was almost comical how good these clowns were at going about their globetrotting crime-spree untraced. And it was weird that Shuichi kept crossing paths with them by almost complete happenstance. Sure, he had predicted their movements in DC, Paris, Reno, and Milan, but Egypt, Taipei, and now… Yeah, completely by chance. Unless… DICE weren’t following him, were they? No, there really would be no point to that at all… Hah, Shuichi was starting to see why Interpol suspected that he had ties with-

Oh, fuck. Interpol.

For about four minutes, Shuichi had forgotten how much trouble he was going to be in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Breathing description, inadequacy, cliffhanger, lmk if you neeed something tagged  
> I like having both Shuichi and Kokichi's perspectives in this story because they're both stupid in extremely specific ways.  
> This is breaking the fiction a bit, but here's a link to where you can take a google maps tour of the real Tanegashima space center:  
> https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/tanegashima-space-center-gift-shop/view/google/


	28. Up and Away Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An investigation ensues after DICE's departure. Shuichi receives some unfortunate news.

[Log of Text Messages from Kaito Momota’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey where are you guys?

I can’t find you anywhere?

From: My Sidekick

Sorry I’m talking to the police right now

From: Me

What??

Bro

I’m gonna need like

A follow up on that

From: Maki Roll

Did you not know the police were here?

From: Me

Uh no

Should I have?

Oh I get it

They’re here about the alarm right?

Well you can tell them it's nothing to worry about

We figured out that a sleeping security guard tripped it on accident...

From: Maki Roll

The museum got robbed

From: Me

What??

From: Maki Roll

Well Shuichi thinks something was stolen

I’m pretty sure I chased the clowns away though

From: Me

Wait the clowns are here?

From: My Sidekick

Sorry Kaito! I’m back

Maki is being questioned now

The alarm going off was probably staged as part of the distraction

Did you check the other exhibits to see if anything was stolen?

From: Me

Yeah everythings fine we did a whole check

From: My Sidekick

What about other buildings on the campus?

Anything missing?

From: Me

Nope everything is where it should be

From: My Sidekick

Well I guess that’s somewhat of a relief

Although that does open up a lot of questions about what exactly happened here…

From: Me

Shuichi I need you to come down to the Space center building

The one with the rocketship

Like right now

From: My Sidekick

What?

What happened?

Kaito?

From: Maki Roll

Where are you guys?

The police are gone and you’re not by the space center

From: Me

We’re chilling in the museum gift shop

From: Maki Roll

What?

It’s not closed?

Isn’t it a crime scene right now?

From: Me

Nah nothing was really stolen

So me and Shuichi were fixing the window

But now we are c h i l l i n g

From: Maki Roll

Huh

I thought you might be investigating still

From: Me

Nah

Shuichi needed to do something with his hands

From: Maki Roll

Oh so you mean Shuichi was fixing the window and you were watching

From: Me

I was moral support!

From: Maki Roll

You know you won’t be able to get other people to do your chores when you’re in space…

From: My Sidekick

He wasn’t making me do it

It was something I needed to do

To like

Avoid freaking out

From: Maki Roll

Oh

Are you okay?

From: My Sidekick

Yes

I just uh

Lost an entire space engine and i can’t do anything about it

From: Maki Roll

What?

From: Me

He did NOT lose a space engine

He was interrupted while doing an investigation on our STOLEN rocket engine

From: Maki Roll

What????

The engine in your shuttle was stolen???

Are you not concerned about that? You can’t fly without one of those right?

From: Me

Hey we’ll find it!

Or maybe we’ll build a new one

It doesn’t matter I’m going to space no matter what!

From: Maki Roll

Wait and you’re not out looking for it right now?

From: Me

Well Shuichi was having a moment here 

And hey when it comes to looking after your ride or looking after your sidekick your sidekick has gotta come first

From: Maki Roll

A moment?

From: My Sidekick

I 

Uh

Found out I’m on red notice

From: Maki Roll

What’s that

From: My Sidekick

Uh

It like

Means that

Interpol thinks I should be arrested

But Interpol doesn’t actually have the power to arrest me

So they’ve basically told every recognized country in the world to arrest me if I’m spotted

So maybe Japan will try to arrest me if they find that they agree with interpol that I should be arrested

From: Maki Roll

What??

Did you do something???

From: Me

No! He didn’t!

Get this

Some asshole in a green coat just came up

And told Shuichi that his boss thinks Shuichi is too good of a detective to be doing things legally

But it's like

No actually he really is just that good

From: My Sidekick

Hhhhghhhghghhghg

That was Agent Sakakura

Them sending him means they really want me dead…

From: Maki Roll

That’s so stupid

You’re just doing your damn job

Hey do you want me to kill that guy for you?

Because it sounds like he sucks and I will totally kill him for you

From: Me

No you won’t because killing is not good

But your anger is valid I am also very angry about this

From: My Sidekick

Hghfgfhhghhhgggggggggg

From: Me

Hmmm Maki roll Shuichi needs to vent some more so we’ll stop texting

From: Maki Roll

Ok

I’m bringing the car over

Tell me if you want me to kill someone for you Shuichi

From: My Sidekick

No thank you 

But I appreciate the sentiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Implied panic attack, police mention, death threat  
> Let me know if the chronology of this chapter is confusing, I tried to tastefully cut away from having to write another panic attack in this fic.  
> Something I find kind of interesting is how a lot of crime drama overestimates the amount of power that Interpol has. They are not themselves an executionary organization, they're mostly composed of investigatory and diplomatic agents that try to get pre-existing law enforcement to work together across international borders. Shuichi being on red notice is going to be a thing™ tho.


	29. Up and Away Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi's family worries about him.

[Log of Messages sent via Discord to “#boss-where-he-shouldnt-be” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Ace: Hey, I know this is like a meme chat

Ace: But it's like the only one boss doesn’t have access to

Ace: And I wanted to know if anyone has noticed anything up with him?

Ace: Because I feel like he’s been kinda weird since we got the rocket

Queen: It’s not a rocket its an engine

Queen: In fact it’s actually only about 2/3s of an engine

King: What do you mean weird?

Queen: Rocket engines are built with mechanisms of fuel oxidization that won’t be strictly necessary for an aircraft that isn’t designed to operate in 0 ppm oxygen environments

Queen: So we’ll have to substitute it with an intake mechanism

Queen: Although the pre-existing combustion mechanism is EXQUISITE

Rook: No one cares queen

Queen: Its an important distinction

Hearts: Queen we have a channel for infodumping

Hearts: rn this channel is for gossiping about boss

Ace: He’s been quiet

Ace: Idk ive been worrying about it

King: Do you think it has to do with his injury?

Ace: Naw like 

Ace: I feel like he was actin weird because of that before the space station

Ace: But now he’s actin weird a different way

Ace: Like before he seemed a little terse

Ace: And now he’s like catatonic in conversation

Queen: wym

Queen: I literally talked to him five seconds ago

Rook: no wait that is suspicious

Rook: if I were him I wouldn’tve just sat there and let you yap

Queen: oh shut up

Rook: MAKE ME

Ace: honestly i don’t know

Ace: but like you guys saw that detective guy there right

Ace: Do you think something happened with them that we didn’t see

King: What??

Jack: Oh you mean how boss definitely has a crush on him

King: What?????

Jack: Literally in Paris he dropped his entire 100 page plan just to go bully that guy

Jack: He’s like a middle schooler pulling pig tails

Hearts: Hmm… Hate to bring it down but pulling pigtails is a misogynistic notion that reinforces the normalization of violence against women...

Jack: It's true tho

Jack: My pigtails got pulled all the time because as you all know I am extremely attractive

Hearts: Maybe they were just bullying you darling

Spades: Yeah I can see that /s

Spades: Hey you know who really normalizes violence against women?

Spades: That detective guy

Spades: He flipped me in Milan! 

Spades: Guy knows fucking aikido or some shit

Spades: And boss isn’t really a fan of violence

Rook: No wait 

Queen: What? I thought he really liked yamikawaii shit

Rook: Even though that guy’s friend literally gave me a black eye

Spades: No I’m pretty sure he hates it

Rook: I see what Jack is saying

Rook: Boss totally has a thing for him

Rook: Like literally you can see the hearts pop into his eyes when he spots that guy

Rook: He dropped a display case on my foot when you told him the detective was in Cairo

Ace: Okay well thats not what I meant though

Jack: What you mean you don’t think he got his heart broken by aged up kid conan

Clubs: Conan’s name in his adult form is Shinichi Kudo.

Clubs: Also I think that talking behind Boss’s back is kind of not cool guys. :(

Spades: If you snitch I’m firing you from being my brother

Clubs: :(

Ace: I just meant like maybe he embarrassed himself platonically

Ace: Or I guess adversarially? Idk whatever word you would use for that

Queen: kismesissitude

Ace: What?

Spades: I will swiftly execute you 

King: I mean i guess i could see him getting bent out of shape about that

King: But we were kinda onto the detective the whole time 

King: I don’t think they would’ve had time to interact at all

Jack: Maybe he’s just sad he missed him

Ace: Ok sorry I don’t know if he’s sad

Ace: Just maybe in a weird mood

Ace: We haven't been in japan for a while and we haven't stuck around a place for more than a week in an even longer while

Ace: It’s putting me in a weird mood too so maybe that’s it

Hearts: Yeah he always likes to be on the move maybe he’s just antsy

King: Or maybe he feels bad cuz Rook got kinda beat up today?

King: I mean I feel bad about that

Rook: I’m okay <3

King: I know <3

Queen: Gross 

Queen: You two are literally sitting right next to each other get a room

Bishop: He seems fine to me

Spades: Oh wow Bishop stopped scarfing for a second to weigh in...

Bishop: And by fine I mean terrible because he just dipped his pork dumpling in his panta right in front of me

Bishop: Also you guys know he can see you texting each other right

Bishop: We’re literally all eating at the same table rn

Queen: Oh yeah

Spades: Oops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Talking behind someone's back, food crime  
> Imagine being in a group chat with 9 people who have no one else to talk to. For some people, this is a reality.  
> Okay, so I've alluded to this before, but this will be my last set of updates in the month of May. I've got tests up the wazoo the next two weeks. This is a good place to pause I think because the next chapter sort of begins Act II of this story. It's gonna be a lot of fun and I have a lot of it written already, but I don't want to start releasing chapters until I finish writing all of them because there's a lot of moving parts. On June 1st I'll give an update on my tumblr ( https://s-j-ace.tumblr.com/ ) about my update schedule in the future.


	30. Back, Then? Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi reminisces about his childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an hour late because of therapy again, haha.

Kokichi Ouma had always considered himself pretty lucky as far as orphans went. 

At least his parents were dead.

Most kids orphaned in Japan were throwaway kids. If you’re a throwaway kid that means your parents came to the orphanage, told the staff that they didn’t have enough money to take care of you, and then left you there. They act like they’re going to come back, but they never do. 

Or at least that’s what some kid told him one time when he was five. Then Kokichi watched an older throw away girl beat the shit out of him. She was convinced that her parents were coming back. Except some other kid told Kokichi that she had a twin brother and the parents kept that one, so obviously they already made the leap of deciding which child they loved enough to keep. 

Or maybe the girl with the twin and the girl with the violent streak were different girls from different homes. The memory was drowned in the writhing throng of mix and match childhoods Kokichi had lived through. All he really recalled in perfect clarity was what he had thought, watching that kid getting beat up by the throw away girl. That he was lucky that his parents were dead. That there were no adults with that special power over him, who could make him hurt like that girl hurt and hurt others. There was only himself to be concerned about. He was free to do as he pleased without caring what any adults thought about it.

Whatever muddled thoughts he had about the power of his own autonomy didn't last for long though.

When he was about four Kokichi was moved out of his first home. He didn’t really remember it that well, but he had to have made the switch from the 0-3 orphanage into a 4 and up orphanage at some point. He hadn’t liked that first new home. The older kids were too mean to him or too nice to him, and, whichever one it was, he didn’t like to play with them. Kokichi ended up watching what the adults did a lot. At some point he figured out forging the transfer papers.

Between the ages of probably 5 and probably 11, Kokichi did a little trick of his own invention which he liked to call home hopping. Every few months he’d orchestrate a paperwork error or fake out adoption that got him moved from one orphanage or foster home to the next. 

At first it had probably been out of some kind of dumb kid logic. Like, oh he didn’t like this one, so he’d just keep going till he found one he liked better. 

Except most homes were pretty much the same. Overwhelmed guardians, ornery brats, and ornately constructed hierarchical systems that mostly relied on age as a measure of authority. 

Eventually Kokichi realized that the only thing that really changed was the way that he himself was interpreted by whatever new social order he had inserted himself into. Was he the weird kid you just had to pick on? The cute, naive kid you couldn’t resist? The crazy kid who’d do anything you asked him to? Or maybe the all knowing kid who could tell the future? Every time he got to a new home he could just invent himself a new personality to take hold of and play around with until he was bored enough to bother with reforging his transfer papers again. He got so caught up in the habit of new personalities that he just never settled on one home.

That is, until he had the unfortunate displeasure of becoming a resident at the Holy Salvation Society Home for Unprivileged Youth in Towa City. 

Ugh. Even the name was super suspicious, looking back on it.

Eleven year old Kokichi hadn’t been suspicious at all. He thought it sounded like some sort of Christian thing (you know, that religion that was in Neon Genesis Evangelion) and he wanted to people-watch some religious kooks, so he constructed a quiet-kid-who-was-secretly-a-super-spy personality to use when he transferred there. At first, it hadn’t seemed all that necessary. The home was basically like any other he had seen before. The guardians were often away, but there were two older girls, probably around 12 or 13, who the rest of the younger kids called Mama and Papa. None of them seemed to mind Kokichi much, as long as he did his chores, but if ‘Mama’ asked him to do something and he said no, ‘Papa’ would look at him with her weird red eyes until he said yes. Pretty average intimidation tactics as far as tween parenting went. Kokichi wasn’t very perturbed.

Then the men started showing up.

Weird, old men who would just watch the kids play during the day. At first, Kokichi assumed they were the guardians of the orphanage, but he overheard the two older girls discussing how they were the ‘patrons’ of the orphanage, which was apparently a different thing. 

Then they started asking the kids to do things, like throw a ball at a target. Kokichi flubbed it, though he didn’t really know if he did it on purpose to fit his character or if his eleven year old throwing arm was really just that bad. The older girls did alright though, and so did a couple other kids. They were asked to do more things, like skip rope for as long as they could or race one another to see who was fastest. Soon it was just the Mama and Papa kids that were being asked to do stuff, which Kokichi was fine with because it meant he could get away with more shit like stealing extra sweets or skipping chores while they were busy.

And one night Kokichi was hanging out in the vents. It wasn’t important why, he just kind of hung out in the vents sometimes when he was supposed to be sleeping. Superspy stuff, you wouldn’t understand. So, anyway, he was blowing dust crusties out of the shaft that led into a room he hadn’t really been in before, when suddenly the door opened. 

It seemed like some people came in, dragging something heavy. 

Obviously, Kokichi crept closer to see what it was.

It was a weird angle, but he could recognize the fancy black shoes of the old men. There were three guys total. Two of them were standing and talking in a language Kokichi didn’t recognize, and then the third guy was just silently sitting in a chair.

Then there was a knock on the door and the talking stopped.

After a while, one of the men said in understandable Japanese, “Come in.”

The door opened and Kokichi craned his neck to see the smaller legs of a child in pajama bottoms walk through it.

“... We didn’t ask for you.” The other standing man said gruffly. “Go get the other one.”

“No, don’t take her. I volunteer instead.” Kokichi recognized the voice of the girl the kids called Papa.

“And why would we take you, when your friend is so much more talented?”

“Because… because she is weak. You said the training is hard. It would destroy her.”

“But not you?”

“No. Not me.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I am stronger. I’ll do anything for the orphanage.”

One of the men snorted. Then the other one started speaking in that foreign language again. The two had a hurried discussion. Kokichi hadn't been exactly processing what was happening perfectly at the time, but after he learned English he thought that one of the men had said "use it."

Finally one of them broke out of it and started talking in Japanese again. “... Okay, little girl. I’ll give you a chance to prove that.”

Kokichi saw him move closer, seeing the edge of something shiny the man was holding before he handed it to the girl.

“What’s this for?” She asked.

“Him.” The man paused, presumably to make a gesture not visible from the vent outlet. “See if you can do it in one blow.”

The girl didn’t speak for a bit. Kokichi couldn’t see anyone’s face, but the girl’s fist clenched. Then she took a step forward. And another. And another. Until she was standing right in front of the man in the chair.

“... Is he a bad man?” She asked.

One of the men laughed. “It will not matter,” he replied, “If the men are good or bad.”

And then there was a pause. A silence.

And then came a terrible abomination of a sound.

*SCHLUCK*

And the man in the chair started making these awful, muffled noises. Like he was trying to scream, but could only manage to choke himself.

Accompanied by an unholy gurgling, dark liquid started dripping on the floor. The girl stepped back.

Another noise.

*KLSHHHCH*

The liquid began to gush in rivulets. 

Then all the noises from the man stopped, save for the trickling of that opaque, dark liquid onto the floor. The metallic stink of it wafted through the vent opening, encasing itself into Kokichi’s memory forever.

The man who laughed before did so again. “Very good. Very good. We’ll start your training tomorrow, little killer girl. You’ll need energy. Get some sleep.”

“If you can.” The other one said.

Both men laughed now.

The girl dropped the thing the man had handed her - a knife, Kokichi now realized - and walked stiffly to the door.

That was when Kokichi developed his own precient idea of what was happening. His stupid kid brain figured out that the girl was going to get back to the sleeping room and notice he was gone before he figured out the man in the chair had just been murdered right in front of him.

He scooted back through the vents as fast as he could, careful to make as little sound as possible. When he got to the room, he made a bee line for his sleeping spot.

He almost made it too.

Just when Kokichi thought he was in the clear, the door swung open.

The girl stood in the doorway in her ratty, mismatched pajamas. She was covered in a dark liquid, the same color as her empty, haunted eyes. Those eyes were on him now.

“Get back in bed.” She said in the same authoritative tone as always, untouched by her recent misdeeds.

Kokichi would never have been so happy to follow an order in his life, but he couldn’t will himself to move. He was frozen. 

Then she said something Kokichi would never forget.

“Do you want to die?

Kokichi jerked into motion at the words, practically falling into the bed and scrambling to get under the covers. He realized that, for the first time in his very young life, he was experiencing true fear.

The girl stood in the doorway for a bit, her dead gaze scanning over the rest of the sleeping children.

Then she entered the room, making her way to the door that led to the kids’ bathroom. She shut it behind her, and after a while Kokichi heard the water pipes groan in the tell tale sigh of their usage as she started a shower.

It was awful. The most excruciating pain in Kokichi’s life had been lying still in that bed, listening to the water move through the pipes, the sound translating into that dark gushing liquid. He wanted to run away. Escape. But that made him realize that it had to be called an escape because he was in fact trapped there. Not trapped like in anime with special plot chains that added to the stakes or the elaborate machinations of a worthy foe that challenged his wits, but by mere circumstance. The secret world of Japanese orphanages, which had seemed for so long like the extended version of a private playground only he was privy to, now seemed like an awful sort of play-pretend where he would be executed if he broke character. 

That was the moment when he decided he had to get out of the system.

Kokichi picked out the next foster home as far away from Towa city as he could manage and started planning his escape the second he got there.

The oldest kid was seventeen at the time, but very close to eighteen and was a rather weak leader. They didn’t have a lot of future prospects, so Kokichi played his trump card, showing them how he could forge them an on paper identity that would lead to a guaranteed job once they left the system. From there, Kokichi assumed dominance in the home’s internal hierarchy despite being the youngest there. He plotted an intricate series of forgeries, adoptions, and bargains that ended up freeing all of the kids in the home from the system and thusly freeing them from the supervision of any adults at all. There were a total of ten kids, including Kokichi. Those kids would live under the same roof, take care of each other, and steal shit from time to time, eventually becoming the internationally wanted criminal organization DICE.

And things were good. They were the way Kokichi wanted them to be. He had people around to keep him safe and he kept them safe and they lived far far away from Towa City and old men who watched him and bloody little red eyed monsters who threatened to kill kids for being out of bed.

Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t far away at all. Despite his best efforts, he was somehow in Japan again, a bullet train ride away from Towa City. He had almost walked right into Killer girl at Tanegashima. 

That made him mad, he thought. That he was the one who had to hide in the bus while she just got to walk around. Like she was a person and not a murderer. Like she hadn’t even been there when she… when she… Kokichi hadn’t even been able to think about it, sitting in the driver seat, safe behind the reflective bus window. It was like every muscle in his body was impossible to relax, each one tensing up as if trying to hold in the shaken nerves trying to tear their way out from under his skin and keep him trapped where he was no matter what his brain said. 

Kokichi had felt fear again. Seeing Killer girl again had forced him to. 

He hated that. Hated fear. Hated that his body had to be capable of it, his mind even more so. It was a feeling that existed only to let others control him. Like a double agent to the rest of his otherwise genius brain.

Even as Kokichi had physically shook himself from it’s arresting grip as he got out of the bus to hijack an escape car, the fear didn’t seem to quite leave him. Not even after they had stolen the engine and made the cargo transfers and gotten to the apartment they had rented by their construction hangar. The fear still held strong all through DICE's silent dinner as they listened to the confused ramblings of the local police radios. Kokichi could tell from the rest of DICE’s frantic phone typing that it was leaking out of him and poisoning his every thought and action in a way that was entirely visible to everyone around him. He hated it.

Then he realized that maybe his fear had been doing that undetected for even longer. That now he was always running and he was always trapped in the state of running. Maybe the weird rut he had hit in heist planning was because he had started to feel too safe, and what had been motivating him was running from something instead of toward something. Yeah, that happened in video games all the time. The troupe of the evil, soulless emperor who accumulated power only to not be weak. Those were the most pathetic kinds of villains, letting themselves be controlled by their fear like that. It wasn’t the kind of villain Kokichi wanted to be at all.

Kokichi wanted to be free.

And when Kokichi Ouma wanted something, he made sure he got it.

That’s why, the morning after the JAXA heist, Kokichi dropped the blow-torch he had been using to secure the joints on his part of the plane-to-be’s metal skeleton. He had spent the entirety of the previous night researching leads on the present state of the Holy Salvation Society, and the emaciated appearance the sleep deprivation had lended him was about to work wonders for his escape.

King, who was working on the wing a couple feet away, looked concerned, glancing first at the fizzing torch laying on the concrete, and second up at Kokichi’s bandages. “Is something the matter, Boss?” He asked.

Kokichi had wanted to make sure King was the first to notice something was up with him, so he had divided up the rotating work shifts on the plane to be done in groups of two and made sure the two of them were paired. 

“Huh?” Kokichi blinked as if waking from a daze. “Oh, sorry. Kinda… Kinda spaced out there for a sec.”

Ok, that got him. King stood up from where he was crouching and came over, picking up the fallen blow torch and turning it off. “Is something wrong?” 

“No.” Kokichi said too quickly in just the perfect way. “I mean. Obviously not. I’m your one and only genius supreme leader and all that.”

He snatched the torch from King’s hand, but then when it was held in his own Kokichi just stared at it blankly, as if he had forgotten what he was doing.

“Come on boss, you don’t have to keep that up. If something’s wrong you should let someone know...”

Hah. Good. King was the one who seemed most concerned about him after his little tete a tete with a broken vent, so by pretending to bring him into the fold, Kokichi would effectively be able to curb all suspicion away from his disappearance.

“Really… it’s not anything.” Kokichi shook his head some more. “I think… I don’t know maybe I should get some air? Or something? But I gotta stay and do the part of the plane I promised to… I don’t want anyone to think I’m losing my grip after that fall… Yeah forget the walk thing.”

“No!” King was quick to say, taking the torch back from him. “Here, Boss, I can take care of your welding, you already got a lot of it done. If you need some air, get some air. I’ll cover for you if anyone asks.”

Haha. Easy.

“Wow… fell for my trap hook line and sinker… and now I get to go slack off and do.. I dunno, videos game or something... you.. Shouldaa been more careful. Now you gotta do all my work… ha..” Kokichi willfully made his tone and movements more erratic.

“Yeah, sure thing Boss.” King gave him a couple pats on the back. “Go get some air.”

“I’m fine!” Kokichi pretended to try one more time.

“Don’t come back till you feel better!” King shoved him toward the door this time.

“Ugh. You never believe me about anything…” Kokichi muttered as he walked out of the hangar, and, by the way, totally got away with everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Orphanages, fear, religion mention, parent death mention, parental abandonment mention, childhood trauma, graphic description of murder, self destructive patterns of thought.  
> I'm very excited to finally start publishing this chapter! If you didn't check out my tumblr, I'll be updating weekly now instead of twice a week, so look forward to a new update next Monday!  
> Thank you very much to everyone who wished me well on my exams! I'm going to be responding to as many comments I got during my testing break as I can tonight.


	31. Back, Then? Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi receives a text from a former colleague.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Chabashira-san

Hey degenerate

You need to do something for me

From: Me

Hi Tenko! It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you. I hope you’re doing well. I’m honored you would ask for my help with something, I’ll do whatever I can!

From: Chabashira-san

Don’t talk to me more than necessary

I know you haven’t been keeping your soul pure with neo-aikido since I last saw you 

So you’re just as bad for me to be in contact with as any other degenerate

I just need to use your brain for something

Seeing as you’re so good at getting into the minds of criminals and all

From: Me

I’m sorry

What can I do?

From: Chabashira-san

One of my students went missing about a month ago

The TPD’s investigation was entirely useless

I can’t find any female PIs who charge a lower rate than you 

So you need to find her

From: Me

Ah, Tenko, you don’t need to pay me. I’d be happy to help. I feel bad about the way we left things off.

From: Chabashira-san

No

If I don’t pay you then it would be like we were friends

Sorry Shuichi but I can’t be friends with a degenerate

From: Me

Ah, ok I understand

From: Chabashira-san

Stop that then

From: Me

Stop what?

From: Chabashira-san

Understanding

I don’t want you to understand me I want you to solve this case

From: Me

Oh, yes of course.

Do you have any information about this missing person?

From: Chabashira-san

Why?

From: Me

To begin the investigation.

From: Chabashira-san

I can’t trust degenerates with a woman’s personal information…

From: Me

Um I think that a name would be enough to start off

From: Chabashira-san

Start off what?

From: Me

The investigation

From: Chabashira-san

Likely story….

From: Me

Tenko how am I supposed to help you find your missing friend if I don’t know anything about her

From: Chabashira-san

Fine.

Her name is Tsumugi Shirogane.

From: Me

That’s all?

From: Chabashira-san

You said that would be enough

Are you a liar now too

From: Me

No! It’s fine.

I’ll get started right away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: rejection of friendship, charismatic misandry, missing persons  
> I like Tenko a lot. She really said fuck men and even though I'm a guy I like, respect that. I like her and Shuichi's dynamic of her hating him and him being like "that's fair" and then her hating him like a tiny itty bit less. Like. That scene where he's walking with Maki and he says hi to Tenko and then Tenko ignores him and says hi to Maki? That's gold to me. There's also like, a part of her wiki that points out that she thinks trans girls are just as valid as cis girls and I really appreciate that. Like "I can excuse hating men, but I draw the line at being a terf."   
> Ok, thanks for coming to my Tenko fan blog lol.


	32. Back, Then? Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi walks home from a shady part of town.

Shuichi Saihara figured that starting small with one case at a time wasn’t so bad after the massive hit his reputation had just taken. Honestly doing anything at all was better than how he had felt when he got home from Tanegashima to the only voicemail mail on his business line being a call from his uncle asking Shuichi if he was okay and also if he was keeping his old case files organized. Shuichi had lied of course, as one does to the only blood tie who cares about them, saying that things were fine. 

They hadn’t been fine. 

It seemed like things hadn’t been fine until he got a text from his old patrol partner, Tenko Chabashira. They had worked together in the short period of time before Shuichi got promoted to detective on the Towa city police force. Now, he was walking home from a bar in the lower district of Towa, where apparently Tenko’s missing friend had been employed until very recently. Shuichi had spent a few hours observing the goings on of the bar and picking apart the behaviors of possible suspects, trying to detect any of the patterns of human traffickers. It had been the most normal he had felt in weeks.

It was kind of awful that things only seemed fine to Shuichi in the middle of an incident. When there was a murder that had to be solved, a theft that had to be stopped, or a missing person to be found, he was in his element. He didn’t have to think about personal anxieties, like his friends leaving him or not having his hat around or being put on red notice by Interpol for aiding and abetting acts of grand larceny which could at any moment be decided by the Towa District Court to be reason enough to issue a warrant for his arrest, after which he would be forced to compile a case for his own innocence as he wasted away in the archaic Japanese prison system. 

Yeah, he hadn’t had time to think about that in the bar, because he had been on the job. But now he was walking home and that meant he was alone with just the movement of his feet and the circling his various anxieties. 

He pulled out his phone, opening his messaging app.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey

Are either of you free to call right now?

I’m walking home alone from a kind of shady area

From: Maki

Kaito’s still at work figuring how to fly a rocket ship without an engine

I’m calling you now

Shuichi’s phone lit up with the call screen before he could even finish reading Maki’s text.

“Hey.” He answered.

“Hi.” Maki replied. “Do you want me to come pick you up?”

“No, that’s alright.” Shuichi denied the need for help automatically, “I’m already pretty close to the office. I just had the sudden thought of ‘what if I’m being followed?’ And then I asked myself what would Kaito do? And then the answer to that would be to shout out into the street ‘stop following me!’ even if I didn’t actually know someone was there. But then what Kaito would tell me to do would be to call a friend because you shouldn’t try to do things alone unless you’re him. So then, you know, I decided to call someone.”

“Good instinct.” Maki commented after letting Shuichi ramble. She took on a lighter tone of voice. “But if Kaito was walking home alone, he might think the thing following him was a ghost and pass out.”

Shuichi laughed. “Yeah… Hey, maybe why Kaito really wants to go to space is that no one’s died up there yet so there’s no ghosts...”

“That’s a good theory.” Maki joked, “Although I’m pretty sure some people have to have died in space…”

Oh. That was a new worry. Kaito could just. Not make it to the ISS. There were so many points in space travel where everything could go wrong. What if he went to space and just… never saw them again?

Shuichi kept that thought to himself, thinking that Maki privately worried about that already… Could he say something reassuring instead?

“Well, I’m pretty sure no one’s ever died on the ISS at least.” He tried.

“Yeah, probably not.” Was her reply. “What about you?”

“What?” 

“Has anyone died around you lately?”

“Oh, uh. No.” Maki was probably referring to the phenomena she and Kaito had observed where sometimes Shuichi just found out about and solved murders while he was out doing everyday things, like going to the grocery store to deliver a case file detailing a series of embezzlements to the store’s owner who had hired him. But it didn't actually happen as often as they seemed to think! “I’ve got a missing person case though.”

“Ah. Thus the walking in a shady part of town.” Maki deduced.

“Right…”

“You know, I’m off assignment right now. If you need some muscle on this one, I’m available…” She offered.

“Ah, I don’t want to inconvenience you during your break…”

“When has that ever stopped you before?” It sounded like a quip, but Maki said it rather harshly. Shuichi remembered all the cases he had asked for her time on before and felt guilt overcome him.

“Sorry, I really do bother you a lot… You really don’t have to-”

“Wait. No. That’s not what I meant.” Maki sounded frustrated. “I just… Do you remember what I was trying to tell you after we parked in Tanegashima? Before the clowns happened?”

“Oh, I think so.” Shuichi had almost forgotten Maki had promised to ‘talk about this later.’ He’d kind of gotten side tracked by the whole space center being robbed, finding out he was red listed, and having a panic attack about not being able to complete his investigation and help Kaito get his engine back thing. But now that he thought about it, his and Maki’s conversation had been rather important. “You said you didn’t want to be alone again…”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I did say that…” Maki trailed off. Shuichi let her think for a moment, because he knew that sometimes Maki had a hard time verbalizing her emotions right away. “Well, yeah that’s how I feel, I guess. What I wanted to say was… Well, I think that with Kaito leaving soon and all… We should make a more concerted effort to… y’know, look after each other.”

“Of course.” Shuichi had honestly been very worried the past few days about how Maki would handle Kaito’s being gone, even if his mission was being delayed another few months. “I feel the same way…”

“... That’s a relief.” Maki paused again. “You know, last month, when I was away on assignment, I was really worried that you were mad at me.”

“What?” Shuichi recalled the period of time, a little miffed, “Why would I have been mad at you?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, I guess.” 

“It matters if it matters to you. Did I do anything that-”

“No. I mean. The reason why I thought you were mad wasn’t why I brought it up. I mean that… Well, thinking that you were mad at me was hard, because I didn’t know how to talk to you when I thought you were mad at me. And it made me think that when Kaito is gone… That I would be alone if I let something like that get in the way of us being friends. Because you two are the reason I’m not alone, you know?”

“Yeah…” Shuichi remembered before he met Kaito and Maki, when he had managed to constantly keep everything that was troubling him under the lockdown of his black baseball cap. Being able to talk to your friends, have people by your side who understood what you were going through and wanted to help you no matter what… It felt like a revelation. “I feel the same way about you two…”

“You know…” Maki cut herself off with a sigh. “Never mind, that’s a weird thing to say.”

“No, go ahead.” Shuichi was rounding the corner onto the block he lived on. “I’m here to listen.”

“Well… it’s just that.” Maki took another pause to think through her words. “You know, I don’t think I even realized that I was a person until college. I thought of myself like… like a thing. I mean. I probably already told you this… but before I met you guys I essentially felt like I was a tool.”

“Oh, Maki…” Shuichi’s heart ached for teenage Maki, who never had the chance to refuse the life thrust upon her… 

“But I remember… We were lying in the courtyard together after doing a few pushups… And you and Kaito were talking about something silly… I think it was your favorite movie… And I remember thinking that I didn’t have a favorite movie yet, because I hadn’t had time to watch a lot of them when I was younger, so I would have to ask you guys to show me yours… And that seemed so amazing to me. The fact that I was a normal college age girl who could go out with her friends and watch movies and then choose which one I liked. And I realized that other people just did that all the time. But now I was ‘other people.’ Like, I was people, you know?”

“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.” Shuichi was coming up on his door now, and pulled out his key. “Although I think you ought to give yourself more credit. You’ve had to be really strong to get to where you are right now and you did a lot of it on your own, we just were there to-”

Shuichi realized that his door was already unlocked.

“Shuichi? Are you there?” Maki’s voice had a worried edge to it over the speaker.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” Shuichi said, putting his keys away as a cold thread of dread shot its way up his spine to wrap in a vice grip around his brain. “I think my mom and dad let themselves into my house…” 

“I’m on my way.” Maki replied immediately, hanging up on her end. Probably to get in her car. Unless specified otherwise, Shuichi only ever mentioned his parents being back in town as a code to signal where he was and that he needed help as soon as possible. It was a good code phrase, because it seemed innocent enough if you didn’t know Shuichi’s parents had abandoned him to his mom’s brother when he was ten.

Shuichi put his phone away and only spent a second pondering whether he should wait for Maki before hesitantly pushing open the door. The key to opening a well oiled door silently is to apply pressure through the doorknob to the door in a different direction than you are opening it. Shuichi did so, peeking carefully into his own house.

The living area which Shuichi used to meet with clients was empty, but Shuichi could see up the staircase behind it that led to his main office. The door was closed, and Shuichi couldn’t remember if he had left it that way when he had gone out earlier that day… but there was light coming from beneath it. He had definitely turned off the lights.

Shuichi took off his shoes, not only to keep his floors clean, but also to make his footsteps quieter as he made his way over to the staircase. He made sure to avoid the steps in the stairs that he knew creaked from time to time. This wasn’t the first time he’d snuck into his own office, but the experiences he recalled didn’t reassure him about what could be behind that door at all. 

He paused before it, worried that the sound of his heartbeat would give him away. No shadows moved under the doorway, and Shuichi couldn’t hear any movement behind it. 

Maybe whoever it was had already left… Although he wouldn’t know for sure until he… 

Shuichi opened the door.

“Hey.” A clown was leaned back in Shuichi’s office chair with his feet on Shuichi’s desk.

Shuichi shut the door. 

He blinked. Submerged in darkness once more. 

Uh. He should probably. Open the door again. Because the clown was still in there.

He opened the door again

The clown was gone.

“Rude.”

DICE’s face swung down from the top of the door frame and the thief did a flip as he jumped down from where he had apparently been standing on the ceiling.

Shuichi almost fell back down the stairs, but weirdly enough DICE grabbed his arm. 

“Hey now, don’t go falling for me yet!” He exclaimed, seeming strangely enthused at Shuichi’s presence as the detective flailed to rebalance himself.

“What are you- You? What? I-” This could not be happening. Why did this keep happening to him? Could things stop happening to him actually.

“Wow, Detective, I didn’t know you were so dedicated to finding me that you’d break into a poor old man’s house just to catch a glimpse of me…”

“This- this is my house!” Was all Shuichi could think to say.

“Oh, Saihara.” The thief shook his masked head. “Give yourself some credit. Poor? Sure. Old? Well... now that I think of it, look at those eye bags...”

What. What was. What was happening. Why.

“Please leave.” Shuichi said, retracting his arm from the thief’s loose grip.

“Oh?” The thief tilted his head. “Aren’t you gonna rough me up some more? Take me in to the coppers?”

“No.” Shuichi walked past him, looking into the office to see if anything had been stolen. 

“Did you reconsider my offer of employment then? Welcome to the te-”

“Don’t even joke about that.” Everything seemed fine, except… some of the files he had organized earlier that day were out of order. “Were you going through my case files?”

“What, those are files? Seemed more like to do lists to me...”

“Please leave.” 

“Hmmm. I’ll consider it. Maybe you should beg.”

Shuichi took the case files that had been messed up and arranged them back in order. It looked like these were some cases that his uncle had handled while Shuichi was still in high school.

“Or, you know, hand me one of these fun little picture books you have here.” The intruding man grabbed one of the case files from the homicide section. “Ooh,” He said, turning the file around to show Shuichi a picture of a man who had been murdered with an ax, “This version of red riding hood is so colorful!”

“No!” Shuichi tried to grab it from him, but the man dodged his grip a few times before Shuichi snatched his wrist and wrestled the file from him. 

“Owie… mean…” The man whined like he had just before he started bawling on the plane… Hey, Shuichi had never gotten that handkerchief ba- not the time.

“These files contain the personal information of my clients.” He stated, finding his voice easily firm when it came to defending someone other than himself. “I can’t let you look at them without permission.”

“What about a case in this office that contains my personal information?” The thief’s voice was somber now. “Can I look at that?”

Shuichi was starting to tune the thief out as he returned the case file to the proper location. “I gave my file on DICE to-”

“No.” The thief said. “Not DICE’s information.  _ My  _ information.”

Shuichi blinked, turning around to look the thief in the eyes for the first time. What was that intense look? Was the thief’s seriousness an act or...

“...  _ Your  _ information?” He asked, cautiously curious. Had this man been involved with one of his cases without Shuichi’s knowledge?”

“January 12, 2010.” The man said the date as if it were a grave confession.

… That would’ve been one of Shuichi’s uncle’s cases. Shuichi had just organized them at his uncle’s behest, so it took him only a second to find the file the thief was looking for. 

It was marked ‘Religious Conspiracy.’

Shuichi opened it, skimming the case summary. This was…

Shuichi slammed the file shut and held it to his chest. 

“Sorry. You definitely can’t have this one.”

The thief tilted his head down, the shadows of his mask being accentuated menacingly by the angle. “Are you trying to protect her?” He inquired.

What? How did he-

“You already knew, didn’t you?” He went on. “That your friend was a murderer.”

Shuichi tried to steel the frantic questions racing through his head out of his expression. “...What do you want with Maki’s file?”

“I want the murders to stop.” The clown popped his head up so that light hit the corner of his mask’s smile. “They’re bad for my business you see…”

“Maki doesn’t kill people anymore.” Shuichi insisted. “The Holy Salvation Society was stopped almost a decade ago.”

“You have no idea how big this gets.” The man made a move to step forward.

Shuichi stepped back.

Then there was a bolt of red.

Maki burst in through the door and slammed the thief to the wall of Shuichi’s office throat first. 

“Maki, you don’t have to-” Shuichi, started, but Maki didn’t look at him. 

Her patented, red-eyed death glare was fixed on the clown.

“What did you just say?” she demanded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: anxiety, missing persons, paranoia, dehumanization, trauma recovery, home invasion, cliff hangar.  
> Aaah it's taking all of my self restraint to not just publish all of this chapter in one go... I need time to edit the chapter after this though so I'm afraid these cliff hangars are a necessary evil...


	33. Back, Then? Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi's wall gets a hole in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its Kokichi's birthday! I was going to publish three smaller parts tomorrow, but I'm just going to put the first one out today because! It's his birthday! haha. The last part of this chapter will be up tomorrow at my regular time.

Kokichi Ouma had been making some pretty stupid mistakes in the past month, but the ones he made today really had to take the cake. 

In researching the Holy Salvation Society, he had managed to discover the orphanage-assassin-cult thing they had going on had been busted up by the Haibara and Co Detective agency about a decade ago. 

The first mistake was thinking that the detective agency was under the same management it had been at the time of the case. 

This had led to his second mistake, getting excited when Shuichi Saihara showed up unexpectedly. It really seemed like this was just his office now. Again, Kokichi had to convince himself that Saihara wasn’t some sort of super human detective machine in order to be properly disappointed with the fact that he was allying himself with a murderer right now. 

Third mistake was waiting around long enough for said murderer to show up.

And now Kokichi Ouma was being choked to death by the demon from his childhood nightmares. 

Fun!

“What did you just say?” The killer demanded as Kokichi struggled to relieve the pressure in his windpipe. It was strange to him how easy the action was. Seeing Killer girl from thirty meters away was enough to paralyze him, but somehow the struggling came naturally to him when she was trying to kill him.

“Y-you should know better than anyone.” Kokichi choked out, pulling the words entirely from his ass. He had managed to prey on Saihara’s detectively curiosity to identify the file he needed. Threading in something along the same lines should work to aid his escape, right? “A pawn like you… Did you ever think about how many pieces were left on the board after you fell?”

“Say something that means something before you die.”

Oof. Tough ask, Killer girl.

“Those men. Do you know what happened to them? After they went to jail?” If Kokichi were in a regular state of mind right now he might’ve asked the question out of curiosity, but right now the focus of his every thought was towards getting the hell out of here alive. He knew that making it sound like he knew the answer already made it more valuable to keep him not dead.

Now that he was doing plans again, Kokichi faked that he was choking before he actually ran out of air. Killer girl dropped him and he took an exaggerated amount of time to catch his breath. Killer girl got impatient, turning to Saihara.

“What does he mean?” She asked.

“Um… Hold on.” Saihara flipped through the file. “Uh… It looks like most of the Holy Salvation guys died in prison.”

“Tell her what dates.” Kokichi suggested, mostly just to buy time. He was now making an effort to sit in a relaxed position and trying not to think about how much his throat hurt instead of making an ill timed run for it.

“Don’t tell him what to do.” Killer girl ordered him. 

“Wait… No, he’s right.” The detective had noticed something. “These dates are… strangely close together… And what’s worse is they’re all marked as ‘suicide’ which, if they were killed before their trial date is just another word for...” He looked down at Ouma. “You think that they were silenced? As some kind of conspiracy?”

Well, now he did. Thanks for that juicy tidbit from your detectivey brain, Saihara.

“Wow, someone catches on fast…” He looked up at Killer girl, meeting her eyes with a derisive look despite every nerve cell in his body screaming at him to run as far away as possible from her. “Just to be clear, I was talking to Shuichi.”

Her fist tightened.

Hahahaha okay as much as Kokichi loved getting threatened within an inch of his life, he really should be going now.

“So are you going to give me the file or not?”

“Not.” Saihara’s response was given the undertone of a growl as Killer girl spoke at the same time, as if the question were directed at her.

“Alright.” Kokichis shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage. “I guess I’ll be taking my investigation elsewhere.” He stood up and dusted himself off, but Killer girl took a step towards him.

“What investigation?” She demanded to know.

Kokichi almost flinched at the harsh tone. Killer girl was giving him a death glare. She didn't seem to recognize him at all. Probably because he had a mask on. Which was a good thing. Except it was also weird, because he knew exactly what she was. Kokichi forced himself to ignore her question, because yuck, murderer, looking at Saihara instead. “Remember how I told you I was a detective in Paris? Well it’s definitely the truth! I’m working a top secret investigation about the new cult activity in Towa City… Interested?” Whoa, wait what? What was Kokichi asking him if he was interested for?

Saihara’s face twisted with concern, and his eyes darted to Killer girl’s for a second. Ew. She wasn’t his girlfriend was she? He could do better. Like. A lot better.

He looked back at Kokichi with some sort of new resolve hardening his gaze. “What can you tell us?” He asked.

Woow, okay… God Saihara was the worst. Somehow having a serial killer bff just made him  _ more  _ interesting. That so wasn’t fair at all. Kokichi just wanted to pick him apart and see what made him tick… OH OH OH. What about a? Could this possibly be? A team up?

“Wow, this is so sudden…” Kokichi crossed his arms, raising one to fan his face demurely while the other snuck into the hidden pocket that he had started keeping smoke bombs in after those last few close calls with the detective. “Asking to join my organization, now, of all times? In this economy?”

Killer girl looked like she was ready to punch a hole in his chest.

Shuichi frowned, “I didn’t say-”

“Oh, but.” Kokichi palmed one of the smoke bombs, raising the hand it was in up to cross his arms the other way and make a face that indicated he was thinking. “Getting into DICE is a prestigious thing… the national exams aren’t for another half a year…” Kokichi tried to convey his ear to ear grin through his mask. “But I like you, Detective, so I’ll give you a different kind of test.”

Saihara looked rather aggrieved at the notion. “Are you going to make me play rock paper scissors again?”

Haha… Good times… “No… This is a different kind of test.” Kokichi extended his hand forward, pointing it at Shuichi. “I’ll come find you, when you pass.” 

Then he threw down the smoke bomb.

Just before it exploded, Kokichi saw Killer girl rear back out of the corner of his eye. 

He dodged her punch just in time as the smoke enveloped both of them.

He heard the crunch of the wall behind him.

He forced himself to move through the shock the sound sent through his bones.

By the time she got her fist out of the wall, Kokichi would be far, far away from this place.

After all, the daring escape was one of his better skills as a master thief.

It had been since before he could even remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Threatening, violence, choking, assassin mention, cult mention.  
> Aaah I know this is real short but that's because it's supposed to be part of a bigger update (which is coming tomorrow at my usual time).


	34. Back, Then? Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi makes a promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was having a bit of a self conscious moment and didn't proof read this, so apologies for any grammatical stuff.

Shuichi Saihara was rather outgoing for someone with social anxiety. It was an outcome of his job as a detective, which required the maintenance of a large web of contacts. But on a good day Shuichi had less than ten friends in the whole world, and on a bad day he had two. Those two friends were Kaito Momota and Maki Harukawa and they were the most important people in the world to him.

That was why, as the smoke cleared in his office and he realized that Maki had punched a hole in his wall, the thought didn’t even occur to him to be mad at her.

“Damn it.” She growled, extracting her arm from Shuichi’s wall, before giving chase to the thief that had just run out the office door.

_ There she goes again… _

__ Like Shuichi said before, Maki liked to muscle her way through problems. Although he wasn’t sure running after DICE was the best course of action after his own track record, Maki’s ability to chase after criminals was definitely a huge asset in most mystery solving scenarios… Shuichi had kind of been dragging Maki and Kaito into his cases ever since he met them the first year of college. Shuichi would use his detective brain, Maki would use her body guard muscles, and Kaito would use his… Well, it actually was kind of a wildcard whether or not Kaito would do something helpful on most investigations. Sometimes he was mostly moral support, other times he would have the one obscure trivia fact from his astronaut training that would blow the case wide open, or he would make the call that Shuichi didn’t know how to. Other times… ok this kind of sounded bad, but sometimes Kaito would be bait in an elaborate trap to capture the criminal they were investigating. Usually he volunteered though! Or Maki would promise to bake something for him…

Any which way, he was good to have around. At the very least, without him, Shuichi was left in his office alone as Maki gave chase. Kaito would probably suggest they chase after Maki, but Shuichi knew that more often than not they just got in her way. So, instead of giving chase, Shuichi double checked his office to make sure bringing up Maki’s file hadn’t been a distraction while the thief grabbed something else. Nothing was missing except the chunk of Shuichi’s wall Maki had punched through, so Shuichi turned off the lights in his office and went back downstairs to the main living area. He turned on the lamp, going over to sit on one of the couches his clients usually used.

He cracked open the case file.

January 12, 2010.

Shuichi had known his uncle had handled this case. Maki had told him as much during their second year at TCC. So theoretically, he knew that he had this case file somewhere in the office, but he had never thought to look for it before.

Analyzing the details confirmed things that he already knew. The Holy Salvation Society was a religious cult that trained child assassins under the guise of philanthropic patronage to a local orphanage. 

He remembered Maki whispering in a distant tone of voice meant for only him and Kaito as her words exposed her past under the cover of a starlit night. She spoke of the old men who assessed her and her friend. How she had been certain that the training would destroy the only person in the world who mattered to her. How she had been desperate to save the orphanage. How she had come back from her training to visit one day just to find out her friend died in a car crash. That she hadn’t been there to protect her at all. That everything she had done was pointless. That death just happened. It was inevitable and there was nothing she could do about it, not even the death wrought by her own hands.

… What did DICE have to do with this case? The trail of misdemeanors attributed to them went back farther than the Holy Salvation Society bust, which was strange… It was one of the reasons Shuichi had found the organization so suspicious, having gone unchecked for so long… especially now that he knew the leader was so young. If Shuichi had to place him, he would pin him as maybe in his mid twenties. That would mean he would’ve been just a kid when the DICE thefts started occurring… Maybe he was a copycat for the original? Or maybe it was some sort of legacy organization-

Wait a second, Shuichi was on red notice. He shouldn’t be looking into DICE anymore if he didn’t want to end up arrested… But if DICE was somehow involved with the Holy Salvation Society, could Shuichi risk looking into it?

… There wasn’t really a question. If it was for Maki there was no other option.

The door opened, startling Shuichi. He turned to see Maki standing in the doorway. She looked at him. Then she closed the door again. The doorbell rang.

“Uh, come in,” Shuichi called, a little perplexed.

Maki opened the door again, entering to stand just inside and close the door behind her. 

“I… didn’t catch him.” She reported. A shadow in the doorway obscured her face, but Shuichi could see the hand that held the doorknob very clearly. Her knuckles were curled and made white by tensed muscles. The faintest scuff marks from her encounter with Shuichi’s wall were starkly red against them. “Sorry. About your wall.”

“It’s alright.” Shuichi assured her, shutting the case file and putting it down on the coffee table while he stood to greet her. “Come in, take off your shoes, sit down.” He invited.

Maki took another second, gripping the doorknob and looking down at her hand. Then she took a deep breath and followed his directions, taking off her shoes one at a time and walking one foot in front of the other to sit on the couch he had gestured to. 

“Do you want something to drink?” Shuichi asked. Maki seemed… rather distressed at the sudden resurgence of the Holy Salvation Society case… and that was completely understandable and Shuichi needed to make sure Maki knew that it was completely understandable. Sometimes doing something physical like drinking a glass of water could distract his brain long enough for him to calm down.

“No.” Maki replied, not seeming to think about it very long. “I don’t. You don’t need to…” Maki’s frozen expression broke and she put a hand over her face to cover it. “Sorry, I’m just processing a lot of… a lot of feelings right now.”

“Yeah, okay. You’ve just been through a lot.” Shuichi sat down next to her, wanting to lend whatever emotional support he could right now, but he wasn’t sure he was the best person for it. “Do you want to call Kaito?”

“No.” She said very quickly. “No. He… He’d… He feels responsible for me. I’ve… Shuichi I’ve worked so hard to not have to look up to him. To view myself as his equal… And there’s… nothing he can do about this. It would only make him worry…”

“Well, not telling him is making me worry about you…” Shuichi knew that being open about her emotions was something that Maki had worked very hard to do for a very long time. He remembered her mentioning that it was one of the things her therapist asked her to work on.

“Yeah, well. You already worry about everything anyway.” She asserted rather gruffly.

Oof… She got him there…

“Sorry that was…” Maki paused, bringing her hands down to grip at her knees. She was chewing her lip so hard Shuichi was afraid it would start bleeding. “Not what I wanted to say.”

“... That’s okay. A lot just happened to you.”

“... Yeah.” It was clear Maki was keeping a lot of her thoughts inside her head. “I just… I don’t want Kaito to have to feel responsible for me right now. If I told him about this… this fucking… it’s just… He’d try to take it all on, you know?”

“Yeah…” Shuichi said. “Part of why you gotta love him…”

“I know, I just…” Maki’s face screwed tight and she looked away. “I just don’t want him to feel like he has to love me. I don’t know why he bothers…”

“Because you’re an amazing person who cares about him and he doesn’t care about what happened in your past.”

“... I love him so much, Shuichi.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I want him to be safe. I … need to take care of him…”

“I know.” Shuichi remembered the last time he had seen Maki this emotional. She had been so worried before she confessed to Kaito. So certain that she was about to mess up everything good in her life forever. “He wants to take care of you too. So do I. You’re important to us.”

“I never… I never did anything to deserve people like you in my life…”

“Maki, we-”

“Stop. You’re gonna make me-” Maki stopped herself, taking a couple deep breaths. She lifted her head to stare straight ahead, every muscle in her face tensed.

“It’s okay to cry Maki…”

“I. I can’t.” She took another breathing break. “I don’t want to… I know I’m supposed to be more honest with my… With the way that I feel. About things. And that it’s a sign of recovery to know that… that what happened to me really was that bad… but I still can’t bring myself to cry about it. It seems wrong. Like. I don’t deserve it. Somehow. Like, I wasn’t the real victim in all of it. I. I made victims, Shuichi. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t feel like one.”

“Maki, you were thirteen when it started. Imagine you met a thirteen year old girl now and she told you that what happened to you happened to her. Would you blame her?”

“But I chose…”

“Would you blame her?”

“I… No. I think I would…” Her grip on her knees tightened. “ I would help her. I would put an end to it.”

Shuichi wondered if he should ask her to elaborate on that or if it only make her more upset…

Maki kept going when he didn’t respond.

“You said that… that those men might’ve been silenced. That there was something… Something bigger behind it that could still… still be...” She looked at him, and for the first time, looking head on into her gaze, Shuichi could see the real, palpable terror that consumed Maki’s being in that moment. He had never seen his friend this scared about anything in her entire life. “Do you really think that? That… that it could be true?”

“Ah, well… It’s unlikely that anything on the scale of what the Holy Salvation Society used to be could operate in Towa City now…” That was the optimistic side, but Shuichi didn’t want to lie to her… “But I don’t know that we can say for sure whether or not some sort of coverup occurred or who could have been involved in it…”

She blinked at him, then looked down at her hands as if she noticed that they were shaking for the first time. “Things were supposed to be better now…” She cut herself off, grimacing. “God… this not knowing… it’s the worst feeling in the world… Is this how you feel about everything all the time?”

Shuichi wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a crack about his anxiety or a genuine question, so he shrugged, “More or less.” He said. Then he thought maybe that was the wrong thing to say. “But, I mean, your concern that the evil religious cult of assassins you grew up in may still exist in some form in our home town seems like a more reasonable thing to have anxiety about than my tendency to faint like a goat if someone looks at me the wrong way.”

Maki squinted at him. “Maybe… but it’s not your fault, that that stuff’s so serious to you, you know… My therapist would tell you… ‘it’s the childhood trauma, Shuichi.’”

Shuichi knew that the typical definition of a trauma was a life threatening experience, but life threatening experiences had seemed normal to his profession since he picked up his first murder case at 14, so he wasn’t really sure if they counted. He kept that thought to himself, though, because he didn’t want that to be the way that Maki thought he thought about her real childhood trauma.

“What you’re going through isn’t your fault either.”

“I… I know that.” Maki frowned. “I should know that. Logically, I know that. I’ve… I’ve been to all the counselling they assigned me. I have a therapist. Things are supposed to be better, but…”

It didn’t look like she could finish the thought, so Shuichi made his best guess.

“...But now you’re not even sure if it is supposed to be better, because the case may not even be closed?”

Maki nodded.

Shuichi made a decision, right there and then.

“Maki, can I touch your hand right now?”

She nodded again.

Shuichi put his hand on one of hers. Her hand felt as cold as ice and as hard as a rock under his grip, but Maki’s shoulders seemed to relax, reassuring Shuichi that it was the appropriate gesture to precede what he was about to say.

“I want to make you a promise.” He said, mustering up every ounce of firmness in his voice for his next words. “I’ll look into this case for you, and I won’t rest until I find the truth that will put you at ease.”

Maki looked at him now, and Shuichi could see the fragment of hope in her eyes. 

“... Idiot.” She corrected the soft look with a harsh tone of voice. “Making a promise like that… you’re just as bad as him.”

“Maki…” Shuichi thought about how to phrase this. “You don’t have to handle them all on your own again.”

“I… I know.” She looked away again and Shuichi thought maybe she was trying not to cry again too.

He retracted his hand. 

“Here I’ll get you some water.”

Shuichi stood up and walked toward the kitchen.

“Shuichi.”

He turned around at the sound of his friend’s voice. Maki still sat on the couch, hunched up and tense. But her face was tilted towards him, and in the lamp light Shuichi could see the glistening outline of a tear running down one side of her face.

“Thank you.” She said, tersely.

“Of course.” Shuichi replied, his heart warming.

It felt good to be useful for something after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Secret keeping, emotional breakdown, emotional suppression, self deprecation, childhood trauma, victim blaming, therapy mention, self destructive patterns of thought, minimization of trauma, comparison of trauma, there's a lot of stuff going on in this chapter emotionally speaking.  
> is it lame to admit I cried while writing this chapter? Yeah it is? well good thing i never admitted to anything of the sort haha :')


	35. Back, Then? Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi updates Tenko on the status of her case.

[Log of Text Messages from Tenko Chabashira’s Cellular Device]

From: Saihara (DEGENERATE)

Hi Tenko. I hope you’re having a good day. Here is a file with a list of leads from observing criminal activity and behaviors in the vicinity of Ms. Shirogane’s daily transit from her home to her work to your dojo to the store she got her groceries and to the store she got her cosplaying supplies. It would be helpful for the investigation if you could tell me if any of these leads sound familiar to you so that I may investigate more directly.

[Shuichi Saihara sent a file “Shirogane_Leads.doc”]

Also, just letting you know that an associate of mine has brought to my attention a case that may make me unavailable at times to give you updates on Ms. Shirogane’s case. If this is not amenable to you, I can recommend another PI that could take up the case based on the leads I have provided.

From: Me

That is unacceptable

I demand that you drop this other case immediately and put all of your attention on finding Tsumugi

From: Saihara (DEGENERATE)

I am sorry. I know this is rather unprofessional of me, but this associate is a close friend of mine and I feel that I must prioritize her case above all else.

From: Me

Wait it’s a girl you’re helping?

From: Saihara (DEGENERATE)

Uh yes

From: Me

Fine 

You have Tenko’s permission

From: Saihara (DEGENERATE)

Thank you?

From: Me

I read your document

I have seen those people in the yellow robes around too

From: Saihara (DEGENERATE)

Really?

From: Me

Yes

From: Saihara (DEGENERATE)

Is there anything you can tell me about them?

From: Me

They are

Annoying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Misandry, reference to missing persons  
> beep boop bop


	36. Lead Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very smooth cover up.

[Log of Messages sent via Discord Direct Message from user rook#8181 to user king#8585]

Rook: Ugh

Rook: Literally what is his damage

King: What

King: Whose damage

Rook: Uh who else

Rook: The guy who just yelled at you for ten straight minutes

Rook: Or gay minutes I guess lol

King: Haha yeah

Rook: I swear being in charge of the building the plane has really gone to Queen's head

Rook: There's absolutely no reason for him to storm in and bite your head off just cuz you're a little behind on plane work

King: I mean

King: Yeah I guess I'm a little annoyed

King: But I kinda get where he's coming from

King: The plane was basically his idea, and if doesn't work out we're all kind of screwed and it's his fault

Rook: Come on it's only been three days 

Rook: How far along does he expect us to be?

King: Well farther along than we are I guess

King: It is kinda my fault tho

King: Like from the looks of it I've gotten the least work done

Rook: Right but like

Rook: Given that maybe he should help you? instead of yell at you for no reason?

Rook: I mean it's not like you're just being lazy

King: Yeah I guess so

Rook: You know I could probably come help you out during your shift

Rook: Show you how the power tools work

Rook: Do I even need to type the winky face or is it implied?

King: Haha

King: No there's really no need for you to come down

King: I know how all the power tools work

King: ;)

Rook: Fff

Rook: If it's just a matter of speed I could still come help you out during your shift

King: Nah I'm fine

King: I can do it on my own

Rook: Are you sure

Rook: Because there is evidence to suggest otherwise

King: I am sure!

Rook: Do we need to have another talk about toxic masculinity?

King: No I'm good

Rook: So you're fine with accepting help from others?

King: No

Rook: Why not

King: Well you know we each have shifts and boss assigned them to us right

King: So it's like boss's orders

King: And you know boss it's his way or the highway

Rook: What are you even talking about

Rook: Boss is more like

Rook: "Here's my way. Oh, you have another, better way? Well actually that was my original way in the first place you just misunderstood."

Rook: Which I'm sure is how he'll be about this

King: Well I don't think he will be

Rook: Why not?

King: Well boss told me he likes just hanging out with me were having some good bonding time on our shift

Rook: What

Rook: Bullshit

King: No it's true

Rook: No you're definitely lying to me

Rook: I'm just trying to figure out why you would even do that????

Rook: Is it because of something I did?

Rook: Do you not want to hang out with me?

King: What? Of course not

King: I always want to hang out with you

King: We're hanging out right now

King: On the same couch

King: Our legs are touching

Rook: Yeah but it doesn't feel like it

Rook: (Emotionally I mean. Our legs are totally touching. But emotionally we are very far away from each other right now.)

King: What

King: No

King: I

King: Ok

King: So

King: Maybe I am sort of keeping a secret

King: But it's the kind of secret where like

King: It's not really my secret to tell so it'd be like betraying someone's trust to tell you the secret

Rook: What

Rook: Why do you only keep secrets when they don't benefit me

Rook: Like literally you couldn't keep the fact that we were dating a secret for even two days

King: That wasn't my fault

King: We live with eight extremely nosey people who have known us since we were fifteen

King: If you’re gonna blame anyone for that blame Jack

Rook: Is Jack the one who lost my rainbow kuriboh

King: Listen

Rook: You didn’t tell me! For 5 years I had no idea!

Rook: I looked everywhere for that motherfucker and you knew it was pointless the whole time

Rook: And now this?? A secret that you've been keeping from me for what? Three days?

King: I don't see how this is applicable

Rook: I'm trying to guilt you into telling me this new secret

Rook: Is how it's applicable

King: No

Rook: Maybe I'll just ask Jack 

Rook: Seeing as you can’t seem to keep a secret from her...

King: No

King: Listen

King: This is a secret that I think is actually important to keep

King: I’m being emotionally vulnerable and I think you should respect that uwu

Rook: owo? What’s this… maybe one of my emotional vulnerabilities is being left out of the loop…

King: No im being serious, you are being fake serious in further attempt to manipulate me into telling you the secret that I don’t want to tell you which is frankly not very interesting and not very related to you in the first place

Rook: Well how do I know that you’re not just pulling the emotional vulnerability card to manipulate me into not wanting to pursue this secret that is actually very interesting and extremely related to me?

King: what would that even be

Rook: Idk maybe you’re trying to put my stuff in jello or something

King: damn yeah, you caught me

Rook: shut up

King: I’ve been so busy making jello I hardly have any time to work on the plane… woe is me…

King: and now it is all for naught… i am truly a party to be pitied here

Rook: you would though

Rook: You’re acting like it’s ridiculous of me to suggest 

Rook: But you totally would put my stuff in jello

King: yeah i would lol

King: but only cuz I <3 u

Rook: shut up you’re a bastard and i hate you

Rook: Wait a second

King: what

Rook: didn’t you see?

Rook: Clubs just left

Rook: we have the room to ourselves now

King: So?

Rook: idk

Rook: wanna make out or something

King: sure lol

Rook: actually wait nevermind

King: oh did you remember that i’m a bastard and you hate me?

Rook: no I still love you but like

Rook: I’m suddenly paranoid that boss is wackamoling again

King: What?

King: He hasn’t done that since hearts knocked out his last baby tooth

Rook: well I mean

Rook: hiding places just to pop out and scare us for “reflex training” was cute when he was twelve

Rook: but now that he’s like

Rook: a grimy little twenty something

Rook: I just think it would be more effective

Rook: And I am highly concerned that he might think that as well

King: I’m pretty sure he’s not under the floorboards dude

King: we’re like on the fifth floor of this building

Rook: what if he rented out the room below us though

King: what

Rook: YOU CANT SAY HE WOULDNT

King: he wouldn’t

Rook: ok, but consider this:

Rook: Boss is like. Never here

Rook: Like the only times that he’s hung out with us have been at dinner and when he’s building the airplane with you

Rook: Probably means he’s hiding somewhere!

Rook: planning something…

King: ok but I think that if boss wasn’t always planning something he’d literally die

King: it’s part of his mental health regiment

Rook: Oh yeah got me there

Rook: cuz boss is  _ so _ mentally healthy

King: Hey

Rook: No I should be the one Hey ing you

Rook: Aren’t you like?? 

Rook: Idk

Rook: Supposed to be more freaked about this 

Rook: Or something?

King: Wym

Rook: Well like usually you’re the one who I have to tell to relax when it comes to worrying about whatever boss is up to

King: Maybe there’s just nothing to worry about

Rook: You’re in on it aren’t you

King: What?

Rook: Don’t lie to me

Rook: wth is he up to this time

King: Hm...

King: Honestly?

King: Not a clue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: weirdly open talk about emotional manipulation, secret keeping, cliff hangar  
> Update is short this week and honestly I didn't intend for that to be the case. The next scene is a longer one and I haven't worked out all the kinks yet. If you've read this far you can probably tell that I'm a person who experiences anxiety, and it's been acting up lately in a way that has slowed down my writing and editing process. My current plan is to sleep more and write down a list of things to talk to my therapist about and then see where we end up next week haha.  
> Also! I got a bunch of new readers recently for some reason?? We hit 200 kudos this week and it's blowing my mind a little bit. It's cool to imagine that many individual people sitting down to read my fic. Thanks for reading!


	37. Lead Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi almost joins a cult. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated in a while! Long story short, I am in college now! So updates will, unfortunately, be coming less frequently. If they do come, they will now be put up on Thursdays at around 5PM ET because I'm in a different time zone now!

Kokichi Ouma wondered where a normal person would go to cool down after being confronted and almost choked to death by the demon from their childhood nightmares.

Then it occurred to him that a normal person probably would not be almost choked to death by the demon from their childhood nightmares in the first place.

In fact, maybe normal people didn’t have demons who haunted their childhood nightmares at all.

…

Hm, yeah, when a kid got choked out by the demon of his childhood nightmares in Naruto, it had happened to the really edgy genius kid with super special powers, so maybe it just was not a thing that happened to normal people.

If Kokichi remembered right, that kid from Naruto had gone to the hospital afterward.

It was pretty safe to say that Kokichi did not find himself at a hospital two days after his encounter with Killer girl.

Kokichi himself was almost completely certain of this fact, but honestly he couldn’t be sure what the building he was in front of was being used for these days. When he had lived here it had been an orphanage. The Holy Salvation Society Home for Unprivileged Youth. 

He hadn’t exactly planned for his investigation to lead him back to the building he had sworn to never return to so many years ago. He had thought that nabbing the case files from the detective’s office that had busted the ring of assassins would allow him to better ascertain the fate of the Holy Salvation Society than the assortment of loosely researched articles he had pulled up the first night DICE had spent in Japan, but his encounter at Saihara’s office only raised more questions. Questions that he probably would’ve had the answers to if his encounter with killer girl hadn’t scared him out of trying to grab that case file…

It couldn’t be helped though. What was done was done. 

He just needed to work around it. 

He had managed to learn some things from the interaction even without getting his hands on the file. For one, the detective had brought up the possibility of further conspiracy than Kokichi had been aware of. That alone had led Kokichi’s investigation to lean away from analysis of whether the operation of turning kids into murderers existed in some form and begin to focus in on determining the fate of the former operation’s assets. He had managed to determine that a series of contracts had placed the old orphanage under the ownership of a well known charity foundation based in Towa City. Some sort of mission statement he had found online declared that they intended to use the free real estate as the jumpstart of some sort of community renovation project, but for whatever reason they had to halt construction. His research had led him to the conclusion that the building ought to be uninhabited.

Kokichi noted that, although he was a little too close to the building right now to see any goings on, he could definitely tell it was anything but uninhabited.

From first glance, it certainly looked like the building he remembered. It was maliciously unnoticeable, squished into a row of homes going from one street corner to the other, so close together that the untrained eye couldn’t tell where each unit began and ended. Kokichi knew, though. He couldn’t recall the exact layout of every building he had ever lived in, but due to the childish secret agent fantasy he had indulged in his time at the Holy Salvation Society home, he had spent hours upon hours in the building mapping out the secret nooks and crannies of it via the ventilation system. 

So despite the weird graffiti now splattered across the exterior walls and all those yellow robes hung on clotheslines outside, Kokichi definitely knew he was pretending to be a dead homeless guy on the doorstep of the right building.

… That might’ve seemed like a strange way to perform reconnaissance, but Kokichi’s options were limited here. Despite all appearances, he did not have the body of an eleven year old anymore and he wasn’t sure that the vents he had crawled through as a kid would be structurally sound enough to hold his current physical manifestation. It was better not to risk it, especially after getting injured in Milan. DICE’s concern over his injury had made them rather bothersome to deal with lately, which was why Kokichi had undertaken the particular endeavor of this investigation on his lonesome.

Kokichi was fine on his own though. He was used to being a part of a squad these days, but he could do without it. He was a genius after all, and in his infinite creativity he had figured out a way to spin his injury to his advantage. 

He was currently inhabiting the character of “homeless young adult who has fainting spells as a result of recent head trauma,” so his bandages were fitting in well as his disguise. 

He’d come up with the idea before he’d even gotten the bandages, though. When he was lying on the bathroom floor back in Italy and was memorizing the sound of the blood leaking out of his head onto the tile.

That was the sound that Kokichi was replaying in his mind the entire twelve minutes it took for someone to open the door.

“Atua be with you!” Someone shouted from further inside the house.

Whoever had opened the door didn’t seem to notice Kokichi, because they replied in turn “Atua be- SHIT!” as they tripped over his prone form.

There were some shocked murmurs from within the house, and Kokichi tried to count how many people he could here, but they were drowned out by the scream of the person who had tripped over him.

“AAAAAAAH!”

“What is-” Someone came up to the door frame, and they must have seen Kokichi too, because they cut themselves off with a shout of “WHAT THE-!”

“Uuuh. There’s a guy out there.” Someone further in insightfully observed. “Like, a whole ass guy.”

“As opposed to only parts of a guy?” Came another voice from inside.

“Atua’s grace!” Another person chimed in, using the name that had been brought up before in an odd expression. “Is he dead?”

This lead to another outburst of chatter, mostly along the lines of “what the fuck should we do?” Kokichi was surprised to count something like more than 20 voices coming from inside the house. He hadn’t remembered that room being big enough to contain 22 grown adults. The room had barely been big enough for all nine of the kids that had lived there when Kokichi had to play in together. There was no way they all lived here… Someone had just been leaving, so maybe the house  _ had  _ been turned into a sort of community center? But why wouldn’t that have been publicized…

“I think he’s breathing!”

“I’ll check his pulse!”

Warm fingers jabbed against Kokichi’s neck and he had to make a concerted mental effort to make the only thing in his head the replaying sound of blood oozing out. He couldn’t react to anything because he couldn’t feel it. He only heard the blood leaving him. He was dead.

“I- I think he’s alive!”

Kokichi had always thought that people who couldn’t act were pretty stupid.

“Should we bring him inside?”

It was really easy. You just had to accept that your brain was just an organ.

“Of course we should! We can’t just leave him here!”

A beautifully simplistic instrument that relied on sequences of stimuli to produce patterned effects.

“But what if he has like… a disease…”

A classical organ could allow a musician to simply press a key to activate a series of pipes resulting in a musical tone.

“What would Atua want us to do?”

It was the same way with the brain.

“...Blood? Sacrifice?”   
It could be trained with certain thoughts or images to trigger a series of neural pathways resulting in emotional expression.

“No! Atua is a loving god! We should help him!”

Anyone with enough brain power to have an ounce of self reflection should be able to identify those keys and patterns and use them to proper effect in everyday conversation to project the image of who they wanted to be.

“Okay, okay, get him inside!”

Right now all Kokichi was thinking about was that sound he had heard bleeding out on the bathroom floor.

“Get out of the way! Make room on the couch!”

It filled him with a hollowness that seemed like a natural reaction to one’s own death.

“Ugh, he’s like a sack of potatoes.”

Which was why it was the perfect sound to be thinking about while these jackasses dragged him off the stoop.

“Does anyone know where Angie is?”

“Angie…” The name fluttered from the lips of every person in the room in a staggered wave, like everyone had suddenly remembered someone they couldn’t believe they had forgotten. It made it easier to be certain that there were exactly 23 people in the room not including himself.

“Be comforted, everyone.” A new, 24th voice, cheery and certain, rang out, silencing everything but itself. “Atua tells me that our visitor will wake up very soon…”

Kokichi felt the urge go through him to prove her right straight away. To sit straight up and just start bullshitting. Maybe tear things off the walls, pretend to be a long lost cousin, run away with the sofa cushions.

Except any of those moves would be far too hasty for what he was trying to accomplish here. The last thing this plan needed to be was  _ more _ hasty than it already was.

If Kokichi had actually been smart about this investigation, he might’ve spent the next few days covertly scouting out the building and figuring out the nature of its inhabitants from their general daily practice and the gossip he could eavesdrop out of locals. In fact, that had been his original plan today, to sit across the street and pretend to beg around for an hour or so. Thusly, he was wearing his oldest pair of jeans and a raggedy T-shirt instead of his proper streetwear regalia, which had more pockets. He wasn’t exactly equipped for an epic escape if need be, with only his phone and a set of lock picks in the only secret pocket the outfit afforded.

This was honestly a stupid move.

It was just that… well, when he saw the building again for the first time, something inside him knew that he couldn’t have just sat outside and looked at it. It just… would’ve made him feel weird or something. He didn’t know. He just wanted to get it over with.

So he’d laid down on the stoop and then after that, well, there really wasn’t any going back, was there?

Except being inside the building didn’t exactly make him feel normal either. He thought that once he got inside that the adrenaline would kick in. That his brain would be forced to go a hundred miles a minute in response to some sort of instinctual fear, and then things would be normal because that was what was normal for him. Thinking on his feet, planning great escapes…

But lying on this couch in this house didn’t feel that way. Nothing was happening in his brain, no strategic tightening or loosening that would put the blood in the right places for his cerebrovascular system to begin functioning correctly. All of the sensation was in his gut, a knot of cold dread forming there without his permission. 

The memory on loop in his head had shifted from the leaking of blood out of his head into the sound of the snores that had subsumed the shallow, panicked breathing he had been trying desperately to regulate the last night he had spent in this very building. Honestly, that situation was much closer to where Kokichi found himself now. Forced to pretend to be unconscious in a room full of people that were essentially complete strangers to him, any one of which could turn out to secretly be capable of murder... 

That was the worst part of it, he remembered. The having to sit still. The being trapped. The knowing that he was supposed to be asleep in his bed and if he moved before wake up call he'd be good as dead even though all he wanted to do was bolt away as fast as he could. 

Lies, acting, illusion. When he was a kid he had thought his talent for deception was this great power. Something that granted him a certain freedom and specialness no one else quite seemed to manage. And, well, maybe most of the time he still believed that. But it was times like this that he saw the true limit of such capability. 

Because acting wasn't a power or a skill, it was a part of a daily game that no one else knew he was playing. The rules were social etiquette, societal standards, unspoken codes. Sure he could bend and twist and find loopholes, but at the end of the day the rules were the rules.

Some of those rules were about which moves would get you killed and which moves would keep you alive.

And sometimes those rules only left him one choice if he wanted to stay alive.

Stay very still and wait for the sun to come up.

Don't move a muscle.

Don't move a muscle.

Don't-

“He’s moving!” Kokichi was abruptly reminded of the presence of multiple strangers leaning over him when one of them shouted in his face.

Ah fuck.

Thinking about the wrong memory had caused Kokichi to cringe involuntarily. Which was stupid. Usually he was better than that. Or, maybe he wasn’t. Either way, he hadn’t been better than that this time, so he just had to roll with it.

Kokichi fluttered his eyes open, trying to look disoriented. Which didn’t require as much acting on his end as he expected, actually. He had been internally mapping out where he thought he was in the building by listening to the footsteps and voices of the people around him. He had assumed that they’d set him down on a couch in the orphanage’s old toy room, but when he opened his eyes he didn’t recognize the room he was in at all.

Okay, but that could’ve been due in part to the fact that um. Yeah. There were like, 24 people in the room. Looking at 24 people who were looking at him seemed a tad more dangerous than it had back when his eyes were closed and they had just been 24 voices. One against twenty four… that was just beyond even the point of calling someone outnumbered…

Not that that was a problem, though. They had already decided they weren’t going to just snap and beat him up. He had them trapped by societal convention. Right right right those were the rules they were following, so Kokichi was pretty safe in that regard. He was just  _ pretending _ to look around at them and be intimidated though because obviously that would be the normal reaction to waking up in an unfamiliar room full of strangers.

Oh, ooh, he should stutter too, then they might even feel a little sorry for him.

“Uh.. h-hello?” He said, looking around. “Um. I don’t have any money.” He said it on impulse for pity points... but then he wondered if that even made sense for his character? Homeless guy who faints in street because of head injury… Maybe he could pretend like he had been shaken down for money before? Or maybe that was just unnecessary character detail…

Kokichi’s internal monologue faded out as the woman in the center of the group let out a rather idiosyncratic laugh.

“Nyahaha! There’s no need to worry about that sort of thing here, silly.” Kokichi recognised her voice as the one that had reassured the group he would wake up soon. Which he supposed his little slip up had ended up proving right. More importantly, though, he noted that she seemed to have the most air of certainty around her than anyone else in the room, and it seemed as if she spoke for them as she went on, “Atua has made this house divine, so that those within may be free of all the troubles and worries beyond its walls. As long as you lie within this house, Atua will watch over you and keep you safe.”

Oh. Wow. Kokichi thought that investigating a defunct ring of assassins would involve less general clownery than themed phantom thievery, but here he was forcing himself not to burst out laughing at the woman’s reassurances. Mostly because finding out that this place’s new inhabitants were also some sort of religious based organization was like. The opposite of reassuring. 

Ok, that was fine though. He could use that.

“U-uh. Th-thanks.” He stuttered out, clamoring up into a sort of scrunched up sitting position. He patted down his clothes, half pretending to check if any of his things had been taken and half pretending to smooth the wrinkles out. “S-sorry to b-bother you.” Kokichi debated casually spilling out the explanation he had decided on for why he was lying on the street, but the woman decided to go first.

“Bother? It’s not a bother, no bother at all!” Kokichi realized she had a bit of an accent as she spoke, but he really couldn't place it. “New faces are always welcome here...” That was kind of weird, wasn’t it? Like, Kokichi had been to a lot of places and heard a lot of people speak different languages. “We teach the word of Atua to all those that our god sends our way.” Then again, he knew more swears in french sign language than he knew japanese dialects so there were certainly gaps in his expertise on the matter of accents… In his defense, it was a lot more fun to google “Je m’en fous de ton cheval” than it was to google “how do they say welcome in Okinawa.”

“Uh. Okay, cool.” He made to stand up, assuming that someone would stop him from leaving. “I’m j-just gonna-” Sure enough, one of the people crowded around the couch placed a firm hand on his shoulder, gently shoving him back into a sitting position.

“Please, stay a while longer!” Insisted the spokesperson for the group. “No use in going back outside. It’s a sunny day and Atua has blessed us with a wave of blessed cooling within these walls. And one of our-” Oh, yeah. Kokichi guessed they did have air conditioning here. Made sense, considering the ventilation systems and all. “-just made something she calls ‘Kool-Aid.’ It’s super duper yummy! Yahaha!”

Wow. Kool-Aid, huh? 

Cool.

Cool cool cool.

So, these guys weren’t even trying to  _ not _ seem like a cult.

“Um, s-sorry, who did you guys say you were again?” Kokichi wanted them to be more specific.

The woman grinned at him. “Hiya! I’m Angie Yonaga!” She declared. “I’m the prophet of Atua, the one true god, here to spread his words of divine wisdom here on the mainland! What about you? What’s your name, stranger? Well, what is it? Huh? Huh?”

Wow. Okay. That was a quick 180 from hokey spiritualist to peppy schoolgirl. Kokichi took some notes in his head. If he wanted to act like he was being integrated into the group later on, he would have to adapt some of their characteristics to his own persona. It was too early for that, though. He should stick with the stutter for now.

“D-daichi.” Kokichi decided, “Daichi Sato.” That was the name he had used when DICE snuck their own eggs into the Clown’s Gallery at Trinity Church in East London. He figured that usage of the pseudonym wouldn’t have much overlap with this “Atua” crowd.

Yonaga beamed at him. “Hiya, Daichi! I talked to Atua and he’s excited to see you here! He wants to let you get to know him a bit better! Yup, yup!”

“Uh. Okay.” Kokichi prepared himself for whatever spiel that she was about to lay on him.

She started off by talking vaguely about an island in the Pacific. Kokichi tried to pay attention at first, thinking that maybe some sort of similar narrative thread could connect this Atua cult to the holy salvation society… but nothing was ringing any bells. The vague remembrances he had of religious studies during his time at the orphanage were more reminiscent of a Christianity rip off than an appropriative fake Pacific Islander religion.

Oh, yeah. It was all fake, by the way. This Yonaga woman was just… just so obviously a liar. Don't get him wrong, she was good at it. Nothing about her performance gave her away, if Kokichi was an idiot he might say she even believed her own falsehoods, but the facts just so clearly didn't add up. First of all, she expected him to believe that she was a Pacific Islander preaching her native religion, but she didn't even have a name for the island she was from, and furthermore, she said her last name was Yonaga; which was just straight up a Japanese last name, even though she had an untraceable accent that seemed to imply the island she was supposedly from had a native language other than Japanese. Kokichi wouldn’t be surprised if this lady was just a tan gyaru girl who just decided to start a cult one day. And hey, if she just wanted to squat in this abandoned building with a bunch of randos who did whatever she said, props to her. But that didn’t make her interesting or remotely worth Kokichi’s time.

It made her… an obstacle.

Yeah, okay.

Since every word of Yonaga’s rambling retelling of her Quirky Island Life™ seemed to wear the connection between her and the Holy Salvation Society thinner in his mind, Kokichi needed to decide what his next steps were.

… Except, that was kind of a no-brainer. The only clues he would find here would be in the building itself, so he would have to pretend to buy into Yonaga’s nonsense long enough to get free rein of the house, or at least a guided tour of some sort.

Which meant he would have to sit here and nod along to her rambling and come up with sort of wary and hesitant things to say the whole time.

Boooring…

…

Huh.

It occurred to Kokichi that, somehow, he had expected this to be fun.

Investigating the fate of an organization of murderers that had inhabited one of his childhood homes seemed pretty cool, didn’t it? It was different, at least. A new sort of challenge. An important cause. Something to get fired up about, right?

Except… that wasn’t what this felt like. It felt more like… like some sort of responsibility. A chore, even. A sorta stressful task that he just had to get done as quickly as possible.

_ Eh, it’s too late to back out now _ . He had already gone so far as to blatantly deceive DICE about what he would be spending his time doing while they got the plane all ready to go. And it wasn’t like his time would be better spent doing construction than it would be spent pursuing the possibility of stopping people from getting murdered, if he was going to be bored either way.

So he played along with Yonaga’s little cult recruitment pitch, and even drank some of her dubious Kool-Aid without being poisoned or anything. 

Probably.

He didn’t  _ feel  _ poisoned and he was pretty sure that was the kind of thing that he would notice. 

Besides, asking after the refreshment had led him to be brought into the kitchen, giving him the opportunity to investigate. The counter top and appliance locations and styles were mostly the same, but they seemed a little cleaner somehow than how he remembered them. Also they seemed smaller, but that was just becoming par for the course due to his whole not-ten-years-old-anymore thing he had going on.

Eventually he managed to make Yonaga think it was her idea to give him a tour of the rest of the house. There was nothing really of note on the first floor, besides some in depth descriptions of the bizarre art pieces displayed as Yonaga blathered on about her divine inspiration or whatever.

The art tour took them up the stairs. When they got up to the second floor, Yonaga pranced towards the closest door. Kokichi recognized it as the one that led to the sleeping room from when the Holy Salvation Society ran the place. Again, it was weird how he was looking down at the doorknob. He used to be eye level with it. 

Yonaga was bothered by no such thing, barely touching the doorknob as she barged through the door. 

Kokichi followed after her, looking around the room with curiosity masked as the wariness that unfamiliarity would supposedly warrant. It seemed as if this was still a sleeping room of some sort, but the nine children’s beds had been replaced with a few queen sized mattresses. Yonaga was still talking and he was still mostly tuning her out, but she gestured towards the corner of the room as if making an introduction and Kokichi let his eyes follow politely. She was pointing at a bed that was under a vent that Kokichi recognized all too well. Or, well, maybe that’s where Kokichi’s eyes went, but she was clearly trying to introduce the two guys who were on the bed. They had boring names, so Kokichi assumed they were extras, but they were kind of sitting on the bed in a weird angle. What was he-

Kokichi abruptly averted his eyes and tried to wipe his mind of the realization that one of the guys was just. Just sticking his hand up the other’s ass. 

He thought for a moment that it was kind of embarrassing that he looked away so quickly. Like that was so totally an obvious reaction to a situation that could’ve had a lot of different humorous outcomes. But then he realized two things. First being that it was a good thing to have a normal reaction since he was trying to pretend to be a normal person. Second being that it is normal to avert your eyes from gross things for a reason. Because looking at them would just mean you are looking at something gross longer than you would have to otherwise.

“-And this is Daichi Sato!” Yonaga finished introducing Kokichi to the guys who were fucking on the bed.

“Thats… hgh… cool…” One of the guys said.

“You wanna get in on this, Angie?” The other guy asked.

Kokichi was shoving down his instinct to be weirded out by this and trying to figure out how to analyze it for information.

“Hmm, let me ask Atua…” Yonaga paused and closed her eyes for a second. “Hmmm… He says Angie should get the tour done first. Daichi isn’t a high enough level to start learning about our training yet.” Kokichi was wondering if he was being used as an excuse to avoid this awkward situation, but then Yonaga went on to say, “I’ll join in if you’re still going when I’m done! It looks like you two are having fun!~”

Hm. Okay. So. It seemed like this was. That kind of cult. 

You know. A sex cult. 

Mhm. 

Okay. 

… You know, maybe Yonaga had already said something about that and he just hadn’t been paying attention.

Logically Kokichi knew that the human desire of sex was a tool that cults used to manipulate people who lived in a sexually suppressed society into equating desire for sexual freedom with a specific system of religious belief, but he had not been mentally prepared to actually see it in action.

Okay, he was not going to think about this with his eyes. He was going to think about it with his brain. What did sex cult mean in relation to the Holy Salvation Society connection?

Kokichi has a suddenly very distinct memory of Killer girl and her friend getting in trouble when they kissed during a game of house. Which was weird, because he remembered at the time he had thought that the girls were stupid for making that mistake while playing house, but now that he looked back on it he had the perspective to realize that it was weird that the guardians had gotten so bent out of shape about  _ that  _ when they had thought sending kids off to be trained killers was alright by whatever sort of pseudo-religious doctrine they were trying to uphold.

So, theoretically it seemed like whatever Yonaga had going on here had a different policy on sex than the Holy Salvation Society, but what about murder? Was murder still okay? Honestly analyzing this facet of contrast probably wouldn’t turn up much new data for him. Having hardset rules for or against sex, either way they were ultimately rules. They were meant to instill compliance, dependence, and control.

Yonaga seemed to notice the sort of culture-shock moment that Kokichi seemed to have just experienced, because her spiel suddenly became about how perceptions around ‘love’ and ‘fun’ were different in her culture than the normal in Japan. You know, freer and stuff and isn’t that wonderful and don’t you want to throw off your chains and live a better life so that you can be chained specifically to me instead of society haha blah blah blah… It seemed like Kokichi’s reaction was one that wasn’t entirely unique to him and she had a whole script about it prepared. Kokichi was trying to calculate how contemplative he should attempt to look about it.

He should be weirded out right? This was weird, right? Yeah most certainly this was weird. Kokichi honestly didn’t have very clear parameters in his head about what and what didn’t constitute weirdness when it came to sex, and that was a bit disconcerting for him. Not that he wouldn’t obviously be an expert if he actually put any effort into researching it, but it was just one of those things that had never really caught his attention, like geography. Romantic subplots in the media he consumed were always just about as boring as Ace trying to explain a map to him…

Kokichi was surprisingly grateful when the tour started being about Yonaga’s art again, because at least the vibes each painting or sculpture gave off left him with a distinct impression of what sort of expression he should make looking at them.

He still wasn’t really paying much attention, though… He was almost shocked when Yonaga started using some words that indicated their tour was wrapping up.

Kokichi focused on not letting his eyes dart to the door of the room he had been hoping to peek into the most.

… And then he let them wander there, a plan forming in his head.

As Yonaga talked, Kokichi put his energy into seeming more and more distracted.

“S-say, Angie…” He interrupted her speech as if the words were being forced out of him. “W-what’s that room? Over there?” He pointed towards the door of the room where he had witnessed a murder a little over a decade ago.

Yonaga blinked at him. “Oh?” She tilted her head, following his gesture to the door… Then she turned back to him quickly with a smile. “Ah, that room is for higher levels only!”

Suspicious! Yes! Kokichi perked up internally, making sure to keep up his current expression of distrait.

“Oh… okay…” He imitated trying to refocus on her, but then he let his eyes wander towards the door again.

“Hmm…” Yonaga squinted at him. “Atua suspects there’s something you’re not telling Angie…”

_ Hah! Smart one, isn’t he? _

Kokichi nodded. “It’s…” Then he cut himself off, turning back to Yonaga. “Sorry, nevermind. It sounds kind of stupid.”

He saw the curiosity alight in her eyes as she took on her spiritual leader affectation. “Atua can be the judge of that.” She said.

Sucker.

“Well… I just have the strangest feeling inside of me…” Kokichi imagined himself as a character who mistook hard to understand intrinsic motivations as spiritual in nature. “Like I’m being called in there by some sort of force… That kind of thing doesn’t make any sense though, right?”

He tried to look to Yonaga as if he were on the precipice of a crossroads.

_ Go ahead, _ he thought to himself,  _ tell a potential new believer not to trust strange, compelling forces. _

He was calling her bluff.

“Hmm…” Yonaga looked upwards and closed her eyes, putting her hands together and one of her legs up as if she was trying to pass off a tree yoga pose as a method of divination. 

Then all of a sudden, she perked up and opened her eyes, a bright smile on her fice.

“Alright, alright, alright!” She exclaimed, heading over towards the room. “Atua says he will make an exception just for you, Daichi. He says he has something he wants to tell you!”

“... Right.”

Kokichi half decided that the room wasn't worth inspecting as soon as Yonaga stopped denying him access to it. His whole "Atua compelled me" schtick wouldn't have worked if she was straight up keeping dead bodies in there or something. Nonetheless, when she opened the door Kokichi knew that there was no point in backing out of the tour now.

Yonaga walked in without hesitation, but Kokichi stopped in the doorway. The room was windowless and dark inside, and Yonaga hadn't flipped on any sort of light switch. That made sense, though. From the hallway light leaking in through the doorway, Kokichi could make out the tall, thin silhouettes of unlit candles, and he could see that Yonaga had pulled a box of matches out of her little utility belt. That was… well, that seemed pretty normal, right? Candles fit into this whole spiritual aesthetic sort of thing, right? And leaving lit candles alone in a closed room would be a fire hazard, so of course the room would be dark. And he had never been afraid of the dark in his entire life. There was no reason for him to…

Kokichi was trying to rationalize all of this to himself because for some completely illogical reason his entire body felt as if there was something fundamentally wrong with the room. As if when he stepped into he would suddenly disappear into a puddle of blood on the ground.

…

Stop thinking about the blood.

…

… 

… ugh his brain was so fucking stupid sometimes. There wasn't anything wrong with the room. Just because he saw someone get murdered here when he was 11 or whatever didn't mean he had to be a big baby about it now.

Kokichi pushed down the wrongness feeling and came further into the room. Yonaga was talking again. "- room in the house where Atua's presence is strongest." She finished a sentence Kokichi hadn't heard the start of, continuing to light candles as she spoke. "When I first moved here Atua had a harder time focusing his energy on this place than he had on my home island, so he compelled me to build this." Yonaga gestured to what the candle light was revealing to be the main feature of the room. It was a large tiered shrine made out of a dark colored wood. The surface of each step of the shrine was covered in miscellaneous items that Kokichi could only assume were some kind of offerings. In between them he could make out intricate stylistic carvings covering the surface of the wood, which must've taken an eternity to craft. 

"Now higher levels come here to commune with him when their connection gets a little spotty. Although, as an oracle I have reception wherever I go!" Yonaga continued to talk about her spirituality as if it were some sort of phone data plan. "So when I come here it's usually just to leave a present he asked me for."

She gestured again, this time directing Kokichi's eyes to another one of her weird nonsense paintings that was leaned against the wall. Now that a few more candles were lit, Kokichi could see that there were far more sculptures and paintings pushed against the walls than there had been in any other room of the house. 

"Since Atua called you in here, he must have a pretty important reason…" 

The only sculpture that wasn't pushed against the wall was one that stood in front of the center of the shrine. It was the least abstract of the bunch, and was in fact a hyper realistic stone carving of a woman with drooping feathered wings, the body of the statue crumpled in on itself. 

It had a sorrowful expression on its face, and it seemed like some sort of clear glass had been sculpted to fit into its face to imitate tears. In the arms of the statue was a golden looking bowl covered with a matching lid. When Yonaga finished lighting the candles, she turned to Kokichi and followed his gaze to the bowl. 

"Perhaps he craves a sacrifice." She said the ominous words in the same cheery tone of voice she had carried on with the entire tour.

He wanted to demand that she explain what the fuck exactly that meant right away, but he reminded himself that asking was more in character. 

"S-sacrifice?" 

The nervous edge to his voice was calculated to be in character. It wasn't real because obviously he wasn't scared. It was a bowl so it probably just had like money or blood or toenail clippings or something with fake meaning like that. No human hearts or anything. Unless there were. How big was a human heart? Kokichi almost looked down at his own chest for reference before he realized that was stupid.

"Atua expects his followers to put themselves into him." Ugh wait was this another gross sex cult thing. "In order for him to know your belief in him and for him to connect with you fully, he needs the data of your soul that can only be found in blood." 

Oh thank fuck, just normal cult things. Blood was better than… well actually there was no point in thinking about the stuff it could've been right?

Yonaga opened a drawer that was carved into the side of one of the shrine shelves and drew out a little pin cushion full of needles. As she closed the drawer Kokichi glimpsed what he thought might be some sort of syringe. For a big donation, he assumed. It was almost relieving how small the needle she handed him was, compared to that. 

…

Yeah, okay. 

Why not? 

Kokichi didn't really think pricking his finger and putting some blood in a bowl was any weirder than the stuff he had already done today. This might as well happen. He didn't really have another good reason to be in this room now that this lead had sort of turned out to be a dud. Any secret assassination files or evidence of the crime that happened here was long gone. He'd just put some blood in a bowl and get on with his day.

He grabbed the needle and got in front of the statue. Yonaga lifted the lid off of the bowl. Kokichi could see right into it now. It was pretty full. The walls of the bowl had coagulated bits on them, but the center seemed mostly liquid. The surface rippled from the movement of the lid coming off. 

Kokichi felt sort of detached from this situation. 

Like, yeah, he was watching this happen, but it wasn't really happening to him. There was a hand that was presumably his going over the bowl and another hand holding a needle. 

He watched the needle pierce the surface of the skin and then come out, leaving a little red splotch. 

The splotch got bigger. 

Bigger until suddenly it was this separate entity from the finger. 

A bead of red blood, tenuously gripping to the edge of the vein from which it had come. It fell from the skin, in the air for only a moment before merging with the pond of blood beneath it. 

The blood… Drip. 

It made a drip drip noise.

Drip drip.

Kokichi could smell it now. How had he not smelled it before? It was in him. The blood. The smell like metal. Like iron. Like the kn. The kn. The.

Then this really weird thing happened. 

Kokichi wasn't really sure exactly what it was. 

But it was really weird. 

Because it wasn't the feeling of being out of his body anymore, it was almost like the feeling of being painfully aware that he was trapped inside of it. Everything inside of him tensed up, his lungs breathed too much, there was blood pumping everywhere inside of him. It was all consuming. Like he was dying. Yes he felt like he was dying. Like every cell in his body was a planet on which a blazing apocalypse had occurred. And yet somehow his consciousness was trapped inside of the dying body trying to force it to live. He didn't. He didn't. He- what? What?

He was on the floor now. The body was on the floor. That's wrong. The body shouldn't be doing that. Something was going horribly wrong. Had he been poisoned? Maybe he had been poisoned. That would make sense, wouldn't it?

No he had to get up. No he had to lie still he was in the room. The room? No he was. He was? Where was he.

Red. He was looking at red. Eyes? They were eyes. No that was stupid. Red on wood. Blood. It was his blood dripping on the wood. His hands were on the wood. He felt the smooth flat surface. His knees were on it too. He was breathing heavily. Except why would he do that? That was a stupid thing to do. He was kind of in the middle of something here. 

Kokichi put himself on pause for a moment. The only motion was the throbbing in the fingertip he had pricked. That was the only motion he couldn't control right now.

Average adults respirate once in 5 seconds. Kokichi made a breath that lasted 5 seconds. And then another. And then he was breathing.

He realized from his position that after his blood fell in the bowl he had stumbled backward and landed on his hands and knees, which was why he was looking at the ground. 

He remembered that Yonaga was in the room when he felt a hand pat his back. 

"There there." She said. "All is well. For some people connecting with Atua is very jarring, like your soul is being grabbed. But Atua is not a grabbing god. He is warm and gentle, and his embrace of your soul is like the touch of a mother you never knew you had, but who has been watching over you from afar your whole life, guiding you and protecting you."

Kokichi tried to process that. He still felt weirdly awful. Like he had some sort of headache. Like reality would crumble around him at any second and maybe it already had. 

The thing that Yonaga had said made too much sense to him. That his soul had been grabbed. Because that’s what it had felt like. His soul being grabbed out and then shoved back into his body. And that wasn’t how he felt right now because he had remembered he wasn’t supposed to feel that way. But he still felt tense. As if he was only just barely gripping onto something that would stop him from falling back into the way he had felt just then.

He… he had no idea what that was. He had never felt like that before. 

Yonaga didn’t seem too bothered by it though...

Poison. He latched onto the thought. Right. He had put the needle to his blood and that was when the weird thing happened. There was probably just some sort of drug or something on the needle that made him just kind of. Lose his mind for a second. Yeah, that's probably what it was. He had never heard of a quick-acting drug like that before, but it made sense. It fit into this whole religious experience thing that Yonaga was trying to sell him on right now. 

Kokichi felt incredibly unsettled by that. That something like that had just… gotten into his body and made him do something... But he shouldn't be unsettled. He wasn't Kokichi right now, he was a gullible extra. Kokichi wanted to get out of here right away, but what would be the motivation for Daichi Sato?

"-" Kokichi tried to speak for a second, but found he was doing it the wrong way.

He found himself just. Just breathing for a second. 

What was he going to say?

He needed a plan.

What was he trying to accomplish here?

He wanted to get out of here. That was what was resonating throughout him. He wanted to be out of this building more than anything else in the world. And… And that made sense logically too, right? He didn’t need to be in this place anymore. He had investigated enough. He needed to leave.

Except… What if he needed to come back at a later stage in his investigation? Maybe he had just done this out of order. That happened sometimes during the investigation phases of video games sometimes.

Right, so he needed to leave but on amicable terms.

What would he need to say to do that?

He couldn’t bust through a window or just take off running… he had to say something.

So Kokichi quickly wrote a little script for himself in his head, and as he did he felt the muscles in his throat loosen with each breath of air that he took.

Then after three breaths his script was done, and he tried talking again. "That was- It was incredible!" He said, looking up at Yonaga and trying to display some sort of reverence in his expression. "I-I feel completely different! I- I was so troubled before. I had, I had a problem I was trying to work out- But now I- It just suddenly came to me! The answer! I just!" Kokichi shook his head like he couldn't believe it, standing up. He paced back and forth for a second like he didn't know what to do with himself. "Gosh, this changes so much… I have to tell her right away!" He rushed toward the door but then stopped, like he had forgotten about his audience. He turned to look at Yonaga, who was looking at him with that blank smiling expression. "A-ah! I'm sorry. I- I have to go right away, but this was- this was- it was incredible. I don't know how to describe it- I" he paused for a second as if he didn't have everything he was saying scripted out in his head. "Can I come back some other time?" He asked her in a way that he intended to sound earnest and needy.

Yonaga nodded sagely as if she had expected all of this. "Of course," she said, "Atua welcomes all of his believers, no matter how new or small…"

"I can never thank you enough- I- just- Thank you!" Kokichi sputtered out, ignoring the crack she had just made about his height. He bowed at a ninety degree angle to really sell the flustered-overkill-gratitude thing he was going for. Then he half ran back the way they had come to the room. He walked normally down the staircase. A few people looked at him as he came into the kitchen and he sort of half nodded at them, walking as if he had somewhere to be. He made it to the door unaccosted. He had remembered the door having a deadbolt when he was a kid, but nothing seemed to be locking it when he opened it and made his way outside. He closed the door behind him.

Then Kokichi was on the stoop again.

The air outside was hot, but somehow it was still easier to breathe. He found that he no longer had to focus on the rise and fall of his chest as his lungs began to perform their designated function without direct oversight.

...

As his head cleared, Kokichi fought against the inane urge to feel somewhat relieved. Sure he hadn’t ended up finding a bunch of assassins hiding in the walls waiting to murder him, but honestly maybe that would’ve been preferable. At least it would’ve made the whole ordeal feel more productive. As it stood it seemed he hadn’t managed to learn practically anything at all, except that his main lead was a total dud. That Yonaga character and her operation were suspicious, but Kokichi hadn’t managed to tell if she was ‘secret assassin’ suspicious or just regular suspicious.

When the thought possessed Kokichi to actually step off of the stoop and begin walking, he found his steps to be somewhat aimless. His feet were walking away rather than toward, as they were often wont to do. 

Probably because he had no fucking idea what he was doing. 

He had been working on cracking this case for, what, three days now?

If he were playing an Ace Attorney game his client would be in prison by now.

Ugh.

Kokichi resisted the urge to face palm.

Real life may be a game, but it had different, more complex rules than anything that a human being could simply code into a cartridge and play on a game boy advance.

He was supposed to be a master of that game, but here he was, walking aimlessly through a Towa City slum after three days of nothing but dead ends.

Okay, but, whatever, right? What options had he actually exhausted? He had just done some public access research and investigated one location. That was all video game stuff, so it made sense that it didn’t work out in real life. What was something he would only think of to do because he, in fact, had the cheat code of being an actual real life person?

…

… 

Well…

It might sound crazy, but…

Characters in manga, anime or video games don’t really… well, they don’t really do the same thing twice, right? Even when a villain has an evil scheme that goes almost perfectly if not for chance being on the side of the heroes, they never attempt that same scheme again.

… If killer girl hadn’t been there, there really wouldn’t’ve been anything stopping Kokichi from nabbing that case file, would there have been? If Saihara had gotten there even just a little bit later, Kokichi would’ve been home free, right?

… Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Kokichi had managed to convince himself of this course of action by the time he made it outside of Saihara’s house.

It was late afternoon at this point, a bit earlier than his previous visit. None of the lights were on in the home, and… yep, Saihara’s lock hadn’t changed.

And Kokichi just… he just walked in. The same as he had the first time.

Except, this time, he supposed, he locked the door behind him before creeping up the stairs.

The office didn’t have any new locks on it either. Kokichi hadn’t even had to touch it with his bare hands, he just pushed it open with his elbow.

And, yeah, the office was empty.

Things were going entirely smoothly, that is, until Kokichi walked over to the place Saihara had pulled the file from two nights ago and found it conspicuously empty.

Hm. Okay.

That made sense, he probably pulled it out to read it.

Kokichi walked over to the desk the files surrounded, careful to not touch anything as he leaned over it, scanning for the “religious conspiracy” label he had noticed on it the night Saihara pulled it out.

He didn’t find the file.

The only piece of paper on the desk was a single piece of loose leaf. A note written in black pen. The ink, still wet.

Kokichi picked it up.

_ Maki, _ the note said.

Kokichi's eyes kept going through the motions of reading the note but his brain got distracted by the address line. 

''魔" and "姫''. 

Ma-ki. 

Theoretically he had known that was killer girl's name, but it was infinitely bizarre to see it written out in the clean kanji just sitting there on a crumpled piece of Detective Saihara's stationary. He had never read the name written out before. 

And. 

Hm. 

Her name was just literally "demon princess" wasn't it. 

That was just her name. 

Kokichi didn't believe in destiny because the concept seemed to detract too much from the severity of willful action, but if there were anyone ever born to be a murderer it was that killer girl. 

Kokichi had to resist the urge to be afraid for his own life again, which was annoying. He managed to do so by reassuring himself that goody two shoes Shuichi probably wouldn't be friends with an active serial murderer. Except when that made him feel better it was even MORE annoying because for some reason he was automatically trusting the detective's opinion on and ability to discern the intentions of murderers, even though he had no clear evidence to support that supposition. Saihara would have read that file by now seeing as he took measures to hide it or get rid of it or whatever, so that probably meant he knew about killer girl. Hell, maybe she had told him herself. It seemed like they were close.

Kokichi stopped fake reading and looked at the address line again.

"Ma-ki."

No "dear," "-chan," or any sort of pet name.

Ugh wait ok.

Kokichi needed to stop wondering if Saihara was smooching someone and focus on figuring out what the fuck this note actually said.

Kokichi started reading from the address line for the third time.

_ Maki, _

_ If you're reading this, I'm sorry I haven't responded to your check in call. Hopefully you won't have to read this at all, but if you do I might be in a bit of trouble. I think that maybe I've tracked down those clown guys again and I went out to do some reconnaissance to confirm my theory. _

_ I intend to be at the following address: _

A street name that seemed… disturbingly familiar.

_ Sorry for the inconvenience, _

_ -Shuichi _

By the time Kokichi got to the end of the note he had already typed the address listed at the bottom into Google maps.

He hit search.

Then he looked down at his phone to see the building pictures pop up.

...

…

God dammit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Choking mention, Childhood trauma mention, [Naruto spoilers,](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rEV2aQHvaq-WsnHZp7SOTMnAJ2cZEufD7Bjop6mD9Sqwi6FMqtQXBweR_xpUR3o3uz0Ohu89jvAEMVkegSfe2L8yN6-iq0oAS1x2czUCNEMvy-Ky2TnTs0sBA3xbnDZkHc7KIovhv5CzroTHqs32VuBEDde5wLj3r6hBihCetGi75P3rwFYiC2Nt2oy4nc6zy7M3H6Tc8ZiP4XSsvcmhR9F0cgzbq35REriP1OpVtGQgUNskiQhoaPZMqN6tlbeLxfI1ZWnKi3e1JNkIZ7iJRk5zspHeScQxaWx-w6hd7k5uOYGcOXMPWFflGVoK88MJfku3zC3OttItrB9GA-QBMKdi6aYN9JXnE_x-s-kRkd_p10FBr70t9vzHa-WysXet-iAMyOLyBXN4Iyg3K02_TadXgE-UgfNQwfRvPOTFWjgKWQdOGjRcIrEn8ojABozoJ_MzYMulXKjFbYRPgfmh0GTn3ODwx_RHiL7L2ixtiSNuRy1zjqbHYcvagJzKEVq8iRjmvVRbHUOThDMaXPeS4hNCgVJ_VktVD4mEosiYhpluzsu8h4UURN9__JtEoDTUI--W7mud-mJWmLDVEwaxt7vm10O_nlX5HOeNFubhfPPYnSEn_-AnvFv9_JW1NKwr9ljGFV4aTJ6UMMgVbF3qeOuYT3CDWcDcuLOdZrPviw4rHL0zObFAvsD1EZ7x=w1545-h869-no?authuser=0) death mention, acting dead, blood mention, blood description, blood when it's inside of you description, orphanage mention, assassin mention, homelessness mention, injury mention, cult, indoctrination, cult leader, [character that perpetuates racist stereotype,](https://kiyokospeaks.tumblr.com/post/183970383057/whats-up-just-a-reminder-that-the-hula-girl) impulsiveness, ADHD impulses and intrusive thoughts, sex mention, panic attack, acute dissociative episode, cliffhangar.  
> Uh this chapter is funny, I promise.  
> I wanted to say thank you to everyone who left me kind comments during my absence! I'll be replying to some of them, but probably not all of them like I used to.


	38. Lead Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuichi has a job to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit late because of my classes, haha. As much as I love sharing my anime boy ramblings with y'all, homework comes first! I rushed a bit to get this out today, so lmk if theres like some typos or pacing issues or anything.

Shuichi Saihara had run out of things he was legally allowed to do by around 2 o’ clock in the afternoon.

To his credit, he had managed to drift off while pouring over his case files the night before, so he had gotten about… six hours of sleep? Maybe seven! He hadn’t really been looking at a clock at the time, but when he woke up it was morning, so that was a good sign.

Waking up at his desk basically meant that he started the day working, which was also a plus vis a vis his productivity.

Unfortunately, he didn't get much done. All he managed to achieve on the Holy Salvation Society case was construct some in depth dossiers on the lives of the implicated individuals before they eventually died in prison, analyze the confirmed kills that could familiarize him with the specific hallmarks that indicated the involvement of the assassin cult, and put in some requests to view further police records on the case, as well as some more recent unsolved cases that had thready commonalities with the previously implicated cases' victim, killer, and probable client profiles.

So, yeah, he was done with that at around 10:30 AM.

He only really checked the time because he had to pick up his phone to answer a call from his uncle.

The conversation went much the same as it usually did.

Hello, hello… Yes, this was Shuichi… Good. Yes, really... Yes, Shuichi was eating well... Yes, he organized those files. 

How were things with his uncle? … Good, good. 

How was Shuichi's aunt doing? ... Good, good. 

Hey, by the way, did Shuichi's Uncle remember that case his agency handled that busted up the Holy Salvation Society? While Shuichi was organizing he just so happened to notice some of the follow up work that the office policy mandated wasn't included and… 

Oh? Had to do with a staffing issue? Right, okay… 

No, no other files were missing… Yes, Shuichi checked twice… Okay, okay… 

Yes, Shuichi was eating... Yes, Shuichi loved him too... No, he probably wouldn't have the time to visit soon. 

...

Sorry. 

...

Shuichi had to go right now, actually... 

Right... 

Right... 

Okay, good bye... 

Yes, Shuichi loved him too… 

Mhm… 

Yes, alright… 

Goodbye.

When Shuichi put down the phone the call had only lasted a few minutes, but it added about another hour to the work he could do on the case.

See, Shuichi loved his uncle. He really did. His uncle was the only person on Earth with his blood who cared about him. He had raised Shuichi since he was 10 years old and put him through college. Shuichi wouldn't even exist as he was now without his uncle. But… Well, that didn't mean that Shuichi exactly trusted his uncle's record as a private detective. 

Sure, Shuichi had looked up to him as a kid when detective work seemed to him as if it was all lost pets and righted wrongs, but as he got more involved with his uncle's agency, some of his uncle's business decisions had steered him off of private detective work in his own career's future. For a good while, he had thought salaried detective work as an employee of the state would be more ethical than some of the decisions his uncle had made over the years, although experience proved that assumption wrong in the long run.

The Holy Salvation Society case happened about nine years ago, which was around the time that the original Haibara & Co detective agency had begun to downsize. 

Honestly, that was probably Shuichi's fault. At least, it was certainly something he had blamed himself for before. Surprisingly enough, adopting a ten year old nephew out of the blue was not an extremely fiscally responsible decision. It was even more disastrous when you considered that ten year old would grow up to be fifteen and test into a very prestigious high school. One with a tuition.

A big one.

To keep his family afloat, Shuichi's uncle had to start making some cuts on the business side of things, and by the time that Shuichi managed to convince his uncle to let him help out at the office part time in winter and full time over the summers, there were about half as many detectives working at the agency. 

When Shuichi eventually left the agency to attend university, there was only one left.

His uncle had managed to do the work of what used to be an agency full of detectives on his own time, taking every job he could. 

…

Every job.

Suffice to say, there had been times where Shuichi had personal, ethical qualms with his uncle’s decisions as they had worked together. But it seemed stupid to voice such concerns when his uncle charged a grieving widow a little more than the usual rate or accepted some money under the table from a Towa executive for some nefarious purpose, because Shuichi knew that he would see that money again in the lights that stayed on late into the night while he did his homework and the dinners that his aunt would call brain food and wink at him as if it were some clever joke, and the tuition that let him go to the same fancy school as Kaede, his only friend.

To disapprove of his uncle’s practices would be to spit in the face of everything the man had done for him. Everything that he was the only person in the world willing to do for his nephew. 

Shuichi couldn’t have done that. 

Still wouldn’t, actually.

Even in adulthood, after finally realizing that salaried police work was no more ethical than private detective work because of the inherent injustice defined in the power imbalance of the position, Shuichi would still never have that talk with his uncle. 

He just couldn’t bring himself to… 

To be so… 

So ungrateful.

So instead of inquiring into whether the “staffing issue” had actually involved a detective who was meant to do the assigned follow up being let go before he could or was really just his uncle’s attempt at saving face over a shady business practice from over a decade ago by asking him the question directly, Shuichi hit the books.

Well, not books, exactly. Records. Financial records. His uncle had used the office Shuichi currently inhabited to keep track of his financial records his entire adult life. He wasn’t so careless as to mark down “bribe from some rich so and so” in his tax reports, but Shuichi knew what amount of money that he ought to have been making at the time and by looking through every expense report, bill, and receipt that his uncle had kept track of in the following months Shuichi would be able to determine if his uncle had received an unexpected source of income that month.

Shuichi found that on January 12, 2010, his uncle’s best detective at the time had busted the holy salvation society.

On January 13, 2010, that detective was fired.

And on January 14, 2010, winter break ended at Kibougamine, and Shuichi’s tuition fees were due for the upcoming spring semester.

His uncle paid in full.

The thing that struck Shuichi as he sat there in his office— the office that he had once only flitted nervously in and out of as a child— was that he remembered that winter. The winter of his first year at Kibougamine.

He remembered being sixteen and sitting scrunched into a ball on the corner of his bed. It was cold in his room, but he didn’t pull his blankets over himself or ask his aunt to change the thermostat. They were trying to save on heating that week. Although, Shuichi hadn’t really thought it would help. There wasn’t any way that his uncle would manage to scrape up the funds for another semester at Kibougamine. It had always been a pipe dream. A school that was too good for him that he had tricked into thinking he was smart. People who were too good for him that he had tricked into thinking he was a peer. A friend who…

… 

Shuichi had been certain that the last time he would ever meet Kaede in person had already passed. The end of winter break would come and Shuichi Saihara would not show up at school again and Kaede would be out of his life forever.

It all seemed rather dramatic, in retrospect, but Shuichi had only really known Kaede well enough at the time to know that he liked her and that she thought he was cool for some reason and since he had never really had a friend before he had been pretty certain that once it was revealed he wasn’t the guy she thought he was she would never want to talk to him again.

So he had spent that winter break talking to Kaede over text like it was his lifeline. He didn’t send big walls of text or anything. It was just normal, conversational stuff. But whenever he sent a reply, even if it was just one word, he would close and open his text messaging app over and over again, until Kaede got back from whatever practice, recital, or meal she had gone afk for.

It had been so important to him at the time, but looking back Shuichi was beginning to feel the weight of a directionless guilt in his stomach. 

On the night of January 13, he had been in his room, on his bed, refreshing his text messages, over and over again, knowing that any second his uncle would knock on the door, and when Shuichi said “come in” he would open the door sheepishly, with a defeated expression on his face and say something like, “Shuichi, we need to talk about what you’re doing for school tomorrow…”

And his uncle knew that was what Shuichi was expecting. He knew. He had knocked on the door, as if preparing to give that speech so many times over the course of the break. But just as Shuichi prepared himself for his uncle to deal the final blow, he would say something like “dinner’s ready” and walk back down the stairs quickly and Shuichi would follow him only to find that his aunt was still setting up the rice cooker. Because his uncle had seen him there, refreshing his phone, with all his winter homework piled up on his desk after he had done it the first day of break, and he hadn’t had the heart to tell him. 

Because that was who his uncle was. A serious, hard boiled stereotype of a private eye who was willing to get into dirty deals and dark business, but wasn’t willing to let his nephew down.

…

Maki had been in jail that night.

…

Shuichi was being stupid. There was no way he could’ve known that. He hadn’t even met Maki. He was only just learning that friends were a thing a person could have, instead of “business associates,” “costars,” and “fans” like the people the adults in his life surrounded themselves with. He didn’t even know if what he was speculating was true, or not. His uncle could’ve gotten that money from anywhere for any reason. Firing one of his lead detectives could’ve been for a completely unrelated reason.

…

Still, though. 

Shuichi couldn’t shake the gut feeling that… the feeling that… That it was all his… all his…

Shuichi shut the binder full of finance reports he had been staring into blankly with enough force and finality to stop his train of thought in its tracks. He gathered up all of the papers he had pulled out from the business section of his uncle’s records and put them neatly back into place with a procedural rigidity. 

The only evidence of the lead that remained from the refiling was a sticky note upon which Shuichi recorded in scribbled script “Haibara & Co. involvement in cover up?” Which he then stuck into the section of the Holy Salvation Society case file on his desk.

Then Shuichi stood there, for a moment, hanging over the desk, looking at the file. 

He racked his brain for next steps, but… 

Well, he would need the files that he had requested from the Towa City Hall of Records. 

Shuichi hadn’t realized that this wasn’t the case for other provinces until he had gone to university, but being a city that was originally built as a place for only Towa employees to live meant that a lot of facilities necessary for the perveyance of their society that would usually be under the jurisdiction of public law and governmental powers were, in fact, provided and regulated by Towa Corp. 

So as a civilian, Shuichi used to have a bit of a hard time getting access to the records the city maintained from the Towa Police and public finance projects when he was younger because they were kept in the same building as Towa company’s private internal records, which meant that Shuichi had to put in a request to Towa tech to see what in any other prefecture in Japan would be public records. Thankfully, Shuichi’s career thus far had managed to get him in the good graces of a few Towa executives, so nowadays his requests usually went through promptly.

The requests he had sent in for police records relating to the Holy Salvation Society case that morning should probably get him some sort of result in the next 24 hours — he usually got a mix of access permissions and denials, so he always cast the net as wide as he could when requesting— but until then there wasn’t much more he could pursue on the case.

Shuichi ultimately decided to put the case file away until he could do work on it that wasn’t just sitting around feeling sorry for himself. He took the file off the desk and went over to where it’s proper place would be on the shelf, but stopped himself before sliding it into place.

… What if the thief came back?

It didn’t really seem like it was in his MO… every DICE heist was absolutely unique… they never repeated themselves.

… but this wasn’t exactly a heist, was it?

Shuichi still wasn’t sure what to believe about the thief’s supposed involvement in the Holy Salvation Society case. On one hand, it was wildly outside of the criminal’s supposed psychological profile to be behind the cover up of a series of murders that had ended almost a decade ago. DICE heists sometimes involved threats, sure, but nothing that was ever followed up on. There were very few cases in their long and storied history of criminal endeavor that even involved a physical confrontation. Although, Shuichi’s own involvement had seemingly shifted that statistic from the close run ins he had in-

Shuichi shook himself. Gah. Nope. Not profiling DICE right now. That was not his case anymore.

As far as their involvement in the Holy Salvation Society, it seemed like only the leader had expressed interest in it, and Shuichi didn’t really have anything that justified looking into the connection beyond the thief’s word… which was… yeah, not really something that he could trust more than he could trust that Interpol would shove him into a cell for even so much as sniffing in the direction of DICE again.

So, it followed that the best course of action would be to minimize DICE’s involvement with this case as much as he could on his own end.

Shuichi looked around the office for a good hiding place for the file. Maybe he should stash it in a different-

His eyes caught on a dark spot on his wall.

Oh.

The hole Maki had punched in his wall.

It was still there. Shuichi hadn’t even put any thought into getting it fixed, being so absolutely absorbed in the case all these days…

… 

Shuichi went up to the hole, furled the file up slightly so that it would fit through, and followed it through with his arm until he could gently place the file on one of the wooden cross beams behind the wall.

When he took his arm out, he could still see the edge of the file when he looked down into the hole.

…

Perfect.

See, Maki and Shuichi were just around the same height. Of course, Shuichi could see down into the hole she had punched into the wall at her shoulder level.

The thief, on the other hand, was about a head shorter than both of them.

He wouldn’t be able to get to an angle to see the file on his own, let alone reach in and grab it with his shorter arms.

Content that the Holy Salvation Society file was properly stored, Shuichi pulled out the file of the other case he was working on, the one he had tucked away after making some notes from his visit to the bar Shirogane had worked at just yesterday evening. 

The day before that, Shuichi had tried to follow up what he had thought was a solid lead, tracking down a recruiter for that yellow jacket wearing organization he had noticed around Shirogane’s commute.

The way that Tenko told it, the people in the yellow jackets were worshippers of this god called “Atua.” A cult, basically. One of those pop up organizations that aren’t technically illegal and take advantage of it to prey on the economically distressed outer regions of the city. His old patrol partner seemed to have a particular grudge against them, and was surprisingly quick to admit to him that the feelings were due to personal experience. Apparently, one of the promoters had tried to make some moves on Tenko’s girlfriend. Or someone she thought was her girlfriend? She was very unspecific about that detail, and Shuichi had been afraid that prodding into it would’ve earned him a sharp rebuke for being a degenerate too concerned with the affairs of women. 

Honestly, Shuichi would have been very happy to have been less involved in the affairs of the woman in the yellow jacket he had met two days ago while investigating. He had managed to get her talking about the way their group worked and who the other members were, but then she had gotten… well, a little too physically close for Shuichi’s comfort and he had asked her to step off a bit. To which, the woman who had been cheerful moments before responded with a cold silence that put every nerve of Shuichi’s socially anxious brain on high alert. He had to awkwardly dismiss himself before things got any worse, and the woman had let him go without a word.

So, yeah, that bridge was as good as burned.

Shuichi didn’t think that any of the information he had gathered suggested a connection to what had happened to Shirogane, though, even if the profile he had established for her seemed to be of the type more likely to get wrapped up in this Atua type of scheme.

It was too soon to go back and investigate any of those sites directly, though, so Shuichi turned to accessible online dispatch records again to gauge if there were any people reported missing with similarities to Shirogane’s case. By the time he had weeded out a few and sent in a batch of new access requests to the Towa City Hall of Records, it was 1:57 PM.

…

…

He checked his phone.

No voicemails or emails from the Hall of Records.

Right, of course not.

Some text messages from his friends, though.

Maki had been sending him check in texts every three hours, and she would call him at 8 tonight to make sure he was alive and stuff. It was the sort of procedure that their friend group had adopted when 2 out of 3 of them had become employed in the business of interacting with dangerous individuals for a living. 

When Maki was on a particularly dangerous or high profile security assignment, Shuichi or Kaito would check in with her, just to make sure she was doing alright and knew that they were thinking of her and she wasn’t a tool out on an assignment but rather a person who they loved who was working for money to support her dreams. 

When Shuichi was working on a particularly dangerous case on his own, however, responding to the texts and calls usually held the severity of making sure that he hadn’t, you know, been captured by yakuza, pushed into a pit of rabid makangos, or tied to the top of the Tokyo tower… again…

…

Hm, that had been a weird case, hadn’t it?

Anyway, Shuichi didn’t actually think looking into the Holy Salvation Society case was turning out so dangerous so far. He didn’t see how looking into the cold case would end him up anywhere worse than already being internationally wanted, and he thought that he had enough connections in the underground of Towa City that even if there was a larger cover up at play no one would take a hit out on him over it or anything.

Although, Shuichi didn’t think Maki was exactly worried that he was in danger of that, either. He thought that maybe she was just worried. Because Shuichi was looking into something that had hurt her and she cared about Shuichi and was desperately hoping that the thing that had hurt her wouldn’t hurt him too.

So, when Maki sent the two o’clock check in text three minutes early, Shuichi sent her a smiley face in addition to the usual thumbs up.

She seemed to be typing something, but then the typing bubble disappeared. Shuichi guessed that maybe she had wanted to say something snide, but had reconsidered it. He wasn’t sure if he should be worried about that or not, but asking Maki about it would probably only make her defensive, so he checked his other texts.

Oh, Kaede had sent him something.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Shuichi!!!!!!!!!!

From: Me

Uh yes hello

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Look! At this!

[Kaede Akamatsu sent a file “THEBESTRECITALTUXEVER.png”]

From: Me

Oh! That’s beautiful, Kaede.

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Isn’t it????

It’s just so (. ✪‿✪).(. ✪‿✪).(. ✪‿✪).

I had it commissioned for the… drum roll please….

From: Me

Um

Bah-dum-tsssss

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Lol Shuichi that’s a rimshot not a drum roll

From: Me

Hey, at least its something that has to do with a drum

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Your C in music appreciation in action...

From Me:

It was a solid B- 

And then I missed 1 big in class activity because my uncle needed me at the office 

And I came back to a 76% with no chance to retake

What do you want from me

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Well, what I want is for you to muster a little more than 76% music appreciation because...

[Kaede Akamatsu sent a file “bongocat.gif”]

^This guy is my new drummer, sorry Shuichi, you got fired ( ー○ー)=3

From: Me

Understandable.

From: Kaede Akamatsu

……

(Can you feel the suspense?)

From: Me

(Yes.)

From: Kaede Akamatsu

(Good.)

….

…

..

MY TOUR’S COMING TO TOKYO!!!

From: Me

Really? When???

From: Kaede Akamatsu

First few weeks of next month!

From: Me

Oh! That’s so great!

Kaito could make it to your show before he heads out.

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Kaito?

From: Me

Oh, yeah

I don’t know if you heard, but he’s going on his first mission next month.

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Oh! Yes, that’s so cool!

But uh

You do know next month is September, right?

From: Me

… yes?

From: Kaede Akamatsu

My tour is coming… early September… 

You know… we’ll be in town, around the sixth, seventh, and eighth…

From: Me

Uh, yeah, sounds like it?

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Oh, right okay!

Just making sure you understood

I thought Kaito was supposed to go earlier, or something

I read about it in the news, probably

From: Me

Ah, yes

The flight got delayed

For um

Reasons

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Right, right, space reasons and all that

You should definitely come to the show with Kaito and Maki! We can get dinner afterward and it can be, like a send off thing for him!

From: Me

Oh, yes

Assuming he’ll be going soon by then

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Right!

You should let him know

From: Me

Alright, I will

When are the exact tour dates again?

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Well

There’s a few

But I’d say the best show date is on the seventh.

From: Me

Okay, gotcha.

From: Kaede Akamatsu

Actually, you know what?

I haven’t talked with Kaito in a while, and I’ve been meaning to flex my social event planning skills for a while now

I’ll just go ahead and text him now and set everything up

From: Me

Oh, okay

Sounds good :)

Shuichi stared at the text message window. Kaede wasn’t typing a reply. Presumably because she was messaging Kaito about setting up concert plans. Obviously Shuichi was old enough to know now that not every pause or silence in communication was a moment where someone was judging him or deciding that he had incontrovertibly failed the social interaction. And yet… Shuichi thought that if he went to refresh the text message window he’d end up traveling back in time a decade…

Shuichi shut off his phone and put it back in his pocket.

And then he was alone in his office again.

With… with nothing left to do on the Shirogane case besides put the files away for later.

…

He did that. Put the files in the proper “in progress” section of his cases.

…

A few months ago, if Shuichi had gotten to a point like this, he would have glanced over the DICE case.

That was how he had chipped away at that case, mostly. Following little tidbits of info and stitching together patterns and predictions in his free time between more pressing cases.

…

It was weird, because most of the time private detective work was… busywork, busywork, busywork, solved it… busywork, busywork, busywork, solved it… busywork, busywork, busywork, and, well you get the picture. 

Looking through old case files, making new case files, intensive internet researching… it all blurs together before that final eureka moment that ends the job.

…

That wasn’t how the DICE case had felt, though.

It had felt more like… more like a series of puzzles than work, to be honest. Shuichi hadn’t wanted to frame it like that before because it seemed… trivializing to the real plights that DICE’s victims were subject to. But going through each old case and back solving how DICE had done it had sort of been like… like a hobby, almost. Something fun and light and a little bit outlandish to end his day with.

…

Maybe red notice was what he deserved for viewing something so serious with such arrogance. Karma, in a way. A direct result of his foolish actions.

…

Right, it would be foolish to look into DICE any further, given the circumstances.

Really, he should just turn back and double check his work on Maki’s case. That would be the most productive use of his time.

Shuichi resolved himself to walking over to the hole in the wall and fishing out the case file he had stashed there, but before he even got half way there, a thought occurred to him.

…

DICE couldn’t exactly be considered _un_ related to Maki’s case, could they?

And if it were for Maki…

…

…

Suddenly it felt as if something in Shuichi’s brain had exploded, strewing bits and pieces of leads and clues that he had been forcing himself not to think about all across his thoughts. It was just- well, it was so obvious that DICE couldn’t have sold the rocket engine discreetly, right? There were too many traceable components to the device- and altogether the engine wouldn’t sell well on the black market even if DICE were the type to sell on the black market- no they always disseminated their stolen goods through legal means- it was more their MO to take components that were traceable in one country to a foreign market where they wouldn’t be recognized. 

That was probably the lead that Interpol were pursuing. It made logical sense, and they had the resources. Except, Shuichi knew something they didn’t-- there was evidence to suggest that DICE had, in fact, not left Japan.

That made sense, of course, the most logical, easiest to pursue course of action never turned up DICE in the past.

So with the hypothesis that DICE was still in Japan, it led to the theory that the engine was too. And if they weren’t going to sell the engine, it could probably be classified with the goods that DICE nicked for their own personal reasons - which had included things like paintings and video games they had a taste for in the past - but what personal reason would DICE have to steal something like an engine from JAXA?

What reason would anyone have.

Going to space?

…

No, there was no possible way for them to have the access to some sort of space launch facility. If that were really their end goal, they would’ve just waited until the already complete rocket at JAXA was ready to launch and snuck aboard it. There would be no point in taking the engine from the only place it could be properly set up to be used for space travel.

What facilities did they have the access to?

There were so many places in Japan that could-

Paris.

…

What?

…

…

Well… in Paris… yeah, the pilot of the plane in Paris had come out clean, which meant that, if what Kaito had said about air pressure and altitude had been true- DICE had to have some knowledge of aerodynamics- if one were to assume they were building something with the parts of the massive engine…

…

…

Shuichi spent the next two or so hours researching real estate prices of large aircraft hangars in the Tanegashima adjacent areas. He was able to limit his search radius by pouring over public record police scanner transcripts that had detailed the chase that he himself had been forcefully removed from. He also took into account the thief’s visit to his own home the day after the heist on JAXA, which implied a location at most within 12 hours of his home, most likely less. Comparing the prices of hangars that met those parameters to the approximate amount of disposable capital DICE might have accumulated in the past months…

Shuichi narrowed down his options to within a single lot of hangars just across the Towa to Kagoshima bridge. 

By bullet train, Shuichi would be able to get there in… two hours…

…

Hhhhhhhhhhgh.

Shuichi slammed his head on his desk.

Stupid. What now, genius?

… 

He should probably report the lead to…

...

Well, no, they would just try to arrest him again, wouldn’t they.

…

…

… Shuichi thought that maybe just needed to see that thief one more time. Figure out if he was really connected to the Holy Salvation Society somehow.

…

So, he wasn’t necessarily pursuing DICE, per say, just going after this one guy for some answers.

That wasn’t illegal, was it?

…

But the only thing he was pretty sure was protecting him from Interpol’s red notice was Towa City Police Force Captain Kyoko Kirigiri’s whole thing against Secretary Munkata for his big flub on the Naegi Incident. She didn’t have jurisdiction in Kagoshima prefecture, and even though Shuichi had done work there in the past he wasn’t sure if his reputation alone would be enough to prevent the local police from-

Shuichi’s phone buzzed, interrupting his train of thought. He scrambled to pull it off his desk and check the notification. He looked hopefully for some sort of response from the Hall of Records that would divert him from having to choose between the rock of having to ignore a potential lead and the hard place of risking getting arrested by leaving Towa City. 

The text was from Maki.

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Maki

5pm check in

Are you okay?

… The thought suddenly struck Shuichi that it didn’t really matter if he could get arrested. Because he was doing it for Maki. Maki who had already been to jail. Maki who was suffering now because Shuichi didn’t…

…

[Log of Text Messages from Shuichi Saihara’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Yeah :)

From: Maki

Ok

Stay safe

The bubble that indicated Maki was typing came up, but then it went away. As if she was going to say something more, but had decided against it again.

Shuichi watched the phone screen for another moment. 

…

And then he set his phone down and fished out a pen and a piece of scrap paper from his desk drawer, drafting a message for in case he didn’t come back. 

When he finished lettering out the address across the way of the hangars he was going to be scouting out, he read over the note again and fretted about whether there was anything he could add to the letter that would make Maki be less worried about him.

…

He couldn’t think of anything, so he just signed his name at the bottom.

He left the note on his desk and hurried downstairs, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders as he locked the door on his way out.

Taking the bullet train to the edge of the Kagoshima prefecture was a two hour ride. Shuichi spent most of it trying not to look suspicious enough to warrant someone comparing his face to an Interpol wanted poster. Which honestly was not that different from the way he usually felt sitting on trains, wondering if people were watching him, what they were thinking about him… but it was different. 

Sort of. 

It was always different when he was on a case, because he had a direction in mind. His anxieties weren't aimless and unfounded- they were all directly related to his case. If he got arrested, he wouldn't be able to finish the case. If he got killed in a train stabbing, he wouldn't be able to finish the case. If he let any of his anxieties about Interpol or what his friends would think or if he was completely wrong about this- none of it mattered. Because it was just getting in the way. 

In the way of Shuichi's work. 

His promise. 

The truth.

It was about a quarter past seven when Shuichi got to the location he had specified on the note.

The airline hangars were on a rocky coast by a retired shipping yard that had been used to dock airline carriers in past times of war. It had been decommissioned when the Towa bridges were built and cut off all the money making shipping routes from the dock. It probably would've shut down even if the boats could still navigate to Towa City around the bridge, though. Sending cargo across the bridges via truck or cargo train was just so much more cost efficient that shipping by boat between the islands was becoming an obsolete practice.

If Shuichi had been looking across the water just then, he would’ve seen the starts of a beautiful twilight sky reflecting across the softly rippling surface of that shipless sea that lay between Kagoshima and Towa City.

But he didn’t think DICE were across the water. He thought they were in one of the hangars across the dock from the abandoned shipping yard building he had set up his scouting station within.

Shuichi had an array of magnifying lenses that he kept in a case in his coat pockets. He used some loose wire and tubing in a different pocket to arrange the lenses in such a way that let him put the hangars into focus from his spot, which was a window on the second story of an old shipping yard storage unit.

For about half an hour, Shuichi didn’t see anything at all.

That was fine, though. In his experience stakeouts were a long game. He’d probably be here well into the night and past the morning of the next day waiting for something to happen. And even though technically nothing of note could be spotted through his makeshift telescope at the moment, Shuichi didn’t feel impatient or useless while staring through it. He felt that calm, determined focus that overcame him when he was working on a case. A feeling that would’ve been impossible to attain, sitting in his home and rereading case files until he passed out into an uneasy, fitful sleep. It was something he could only have in the midst of action. In the middle of actually doing something.

In his focus, Shuichi only noticed how hot the summer evening sun leaking through the window was after he had been lying there for about 37 minutes, when a drop of sweat slipped from his forehead onto one of the lenses of the telescope.

“Ugh. Shit.” Shuichi muttered to himself. He took the edge of his coat and wiped the glass clean, but just as he was about to lie back down, the memory of Maki scolding him about dressing for the weather came to mind.

“If you die of heatstroke on the way there, I’m not going to your funeral.” She had said.

Yeah… uh. If Shuichi died of heatstroke that would really not be so helpful for this stakeout, would it…

Shuichi shrugged his jacket off his shoulders, pushing it aside so that it didn’t get in the way of his arm adjusting the telescope.

It was about another seven minutes of nothing, after that.

And then a darkness rolled in over the window.  
Shuichi blinked, taking his eye out of the telescope lens, and as his pupils adjusted he realized that a tarp had been rolled over the window from the outside.

Shuichi stood up, suddenly aware of his surroundings again. Was there some sort of construction project happening on this building that he wasn’t aware of? Was it not so abandoned after all? Was Shuichi about to get arrested? He looked around the room, but saw no human presence that could indicate evidence for or against any of the alarmed hypotheses his brain was spitting out.

Then another tarp fell over another window. From the roof, Shuichi realized as another fell. He needed to get to the-

But by the time Shuichi started looking for a ladder, the last window had been covered and he was submerged in darkness.

Oh great, how was he going to- Oh! His phone flashlight, duh. This had already happened before, it was probably-

Shuichi was stopped from leaning over to pick up his coat halfway by the feeling of something bumping up against the back of his head.

“Don’t turn around.”

Shuichi felt every hair on his neck rise as he recognized the cold pressure of a metal gun barrel settled on his neck.

“Most run of the mills aim for the head.” The tone of the voice was so steady that Shuichi almost didn’t recognize it. “Tons of tempting gushy stuff in there. A lot of the time the bullet can go right through. It’s a real spectacle. But there’s so much stuff in your brain that you can get rid of some of it and still go on… but I guess you already know about the kind of permanent damage a point blank shot in the spinal cord or the vertebral artery can do to the human body, don’t you, _Detective_?”

At hearing the thief’s nickname for him, Shuichi felt a chill go up his spine. The guy was aiming a little low for his vertebral artery, but Shuichi didn’t exactly want to challenge him to aim higher. With the. The gun he was apparently holding to Shuichi’s neck.

…

Shuichi was having a hard time resolving this situation he was suddenly in with the memory of the guy who had nicked himself with a knife on an airplane after just forcing Shuichi to play Rock Paper Scissors with him for an hour.

“... You’re bluffing.” He said rather boldly. “DICE has never killed people. Not even security guards, or police, or-“

The thief cut him off with a sharp, wicked laugh. His laugh always had this characteristic pronunciation to it, but somehow Shuichi had never expected it could be as chilling as it was just then.

“Well,” The Thief said, seeming to adjust his grip on the gun from the way the barrel moved against Shuichi’s neck. “You’ve already figured out that you aren’t dealing with DICE, right?” He jabbed the metal end of the gun a little further against Shuichi’s skin. “You’re dealing with me.”

The implications of the words raced through Shuichi’s head. Of course, his work on the case thus far had led him to believe that this man was the leader of the group, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the actions of the group at large specifically reflected his own morals and motivations. And this case seemed to mean something more personal, more serious to him than any of the heists Shuichi had encountered him on before…

Shuichi decided to remain silent after that, complying with the other man’s orders. He looked for any opening to make off, but the thief managed to tightly knot Shuichi’s hands to the loop of a large anchor he wouldn’t have had a hope of lifting by himself. Shuichi tried to wait for him to put down the gun, but the thief somehow managed to tie the knot secure with just one hand, keeping in Shuichi’s blind spot the entire time, even as the detective's eyes adjusted to the darkness.

As Shuichi tested the knot and found that it didn’t allow for any slack at all around his wrists, the realization that he was tied to an anchor settled into him. Was the guy planning to send him off the docks? He wouldn’t be the first…

A couple of times that Shuichi had nearly drowned flashed through his head. 

It was never pleasant, drowning. 

Violent, always violent. 

Not nearly as cold as you would expect.

“Ok.” The man spoke again after the final tightening of the knot, seemingly satisfied with his handiwork. “Now talk.”

“What?” Shuichi blinked. He had been mentally preparing himself to be cut off as a loose end, not to be interrogated.

“Tell me what you know.” The thief persisted.

“Know about what?” Shuichi asked. _About the Holy Salvation Society._ His own mind answered. Was the thief trying to gauge if he knew too much to live? That had happened to Shuichi before. Playing dumb was probably the safest-

“If you really knew nothing," the thief spoke as if anticipating his intention, "Then you’d be stuttering.”

Shuichi blinked, a little surprised at the confidence of the thief's assertion. Was it a bluff? “I don’t-“

“I hate liars, you know.” The thief cut him off, an undercurrent of anger coming into his tone.

Shuichi closed his mouth. Right. When someone is pointing a gun at you, you're supposed to just do what they tell you to. That was, like, survival 101 in the school of detectiving. Don't aggravate them… but how much did this thief actually know himself? 

“... Probably not anything you don’t already know.” Shuichi answered the thief's question with an assumption, fishing for information from his response.

“Of course." The man agreed right away. "But that’s not a good enough answer to pass.”

“Pass?” Shuichi narrowed his eyes.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?" The thief tilted asked. "To see if you passed the test.”

“Test?" What was he talking about? Was this about the Holy Salvation Society or not? "I don’t know anything about a test…”

“Wow, now you’re just hurting my feelings.” Shuichi found himself reeling a bit as the thief completely switched from seriously threatening to shoot him to whining like a child. “It’s like you don’t listen to me at aaaall.”

"Uhhh…" Shuichi thought back, suddenly recalling the details of his last encounter with the thief. Right, he had said something about testing him then, too…

Shuichi frowned.

"I told you before," he said, "I do not want to join your 'evil organization.'"

"Whaaat? I mean, obviously you do!" The thief exclaimed. "Why else would you seek me out? Isn't the part where your new boss threatens to shoot you dead the most exciting part of the job interview?"

"Uh…" Shuichi had actually never had to interview for a job before. He had sort of just started working at his uncle's, then his job on the police force was based on his national exam and then he had started his private practice so… Well, actually, he had been threatened at gunpoint by prospective clients, before, but he didn't think that really counted? Clients weren't technically his "bosses" anyway. Also, Shuichi thought that maybe he was pretty sure a boss pointing a gun at a new employee was not a normal job interview thing. Well, obviously, right?

The thief laughed again, and Shuichi was startled once more by how light his manner had suddenly become. There wasn't a hint of the threat that had laced the sound of his laugh just moments before, it didn't even sound all that cruel.

"Nee hee hee… You're hilarious, you know that, Saihara?" He laughed again. "You look like you actually had to think about that one."

Shuichi frowned, not really sure that his being threatened at gunpoint warranted this much mirth.

“... It makes it really sad that I totally have to shoot dead if you’re going to be adamant about being completely useless to me…”

Aha! So the thief assumed that information Shuichi had would be useful to him somehow, implying that he didn’t know much himself… Or maybe that was just what he wanted Shuichi to think? Or maybe he meant that Shuichi being able to find out the information he already knew meant that Shuichi could be useful to him in the future… But Shuichi still had no idea what the thief’s involvement in all of this was, so even if he did attempt to ‘prove’ there was no way he’d be up to whatever standard the thief had for him.

“Well, detective, what’s it going to be?”

…

Despite how odd the surrounding circumstances were, Shuichi had to make a familiar a decision.

Whatever the thief’s motivations were, Shuichi had nothing to say to him. Anything he could say would only give the guy pointing a gun at his head more power.

There was a beat of silence as Shuichi prepared himself for whatever would come next.

Then the bell chiming ringtone of Maki's number started blaring from the direction of Shuichi's abandoned coat by the window.

Shuichi saw movement in the corner of his eye as the thief turned to look towards the sound. "Shit, that's killer girl, isn't it?" He muttered to himself.

 _Killer girl?_ Shuichi wondered to himself. Had the thief called Maki that before? How did he know she was the one calling him? Although, the assumption was no doubt correct. It was about time for the evening check up call…

"Ugh, I guess you need to be alive for this part." The thief whined, carelessly tossing the weapon that he had been pointing at Shuichi to the ground.

The detective flinched, expecting some sort of misfire. But as it hit the ground, all Shuichi heard was a heavy sounding thunk. Like the sound of a plastic water bottle hitting the ground.

When he looked at the device he saw that it was a blue and green so bright that it could be made out clearly even in the darkness, which was an odd color for a…

… 

Shuichi realized that the "gun" was, in fact, a plastic super soaker with a cylinder of metal gaskets glued to the barrel.

He processed this, mind whirling. He only registered the thief moving behind him when he looked up to see him about halfway towards the makeshift scouting station where his coat lay on the ground. 

That was when Shuichi got his first good look at the thief.

In his head he had been picturing the man standing behind him with a gun to his head to be in his full thievery attire, mask and all. But as the thief walked up to the window where the fading sunlight glowed through the blackout tarp just slightly orange, Shuichi could see the faint light reflecting off of the man's bare face. 

Shuichi's brain automatically took the opportunity to mentally observe a description of his so-called captor. There was a bandage on his forehead. Probably from his fall in Milan. He had his straight jacket tied around his neck by the sleeves like a cape. Under that he was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

"Do you know JSL?" The thief asked as he leaned over Shuichi's coat and fished around in the pockets for his phone.

"Uh. Sorry, not that well." Shuichi found himself answering the question honestly. He had picked up some key hand signs over the years just from the necessities of his profession, but he had never seen fit to completely dedicate himself to taking up the language.

"I'll just type, then." The thief stood up, Shuichi's phone in one hand, his own in another. "You're going to have to repeat exactly what I tell you, or else, you know…" he shrugged as he came up to where Shuichi was, gesturing at the water gun on the floor in a vague threat.

What… what was he even threatening to do? Drown him with a super soaker? Wait, maybe he could do that… Yeah… If he stuck it in the windpipe, the nozzle would be just the right size to-

"What's your password?" The thief asked as he tried to swipe Shuichi's lockscreen open.

"Uh…" oh, right. There was no time to think about theoretical ways he might get murdered. His phone was still ringing and he had to answer it before Maki thought he was in actual trouble or something.

"Here," In a practiced maneuver, Shuichi used a nearby box to get his leg up over the anchor and jump through his arms so that his hands were in front of him. "Use my fingerprint sensor, it's faster."

The thief watched him hop around the anchor with a blank expression. When Shuichi suggested using his finger print, the thief a face at him, like "how stupid do you think I am?" But before he could actually say something to that effect, Shuichi's phone suddenly stopped ringing.

Shuichi felt alarm go through him, imagining the distress his missing the call would put Maki through, his mind racing trying to find the words that would convince the thief to hand him his phone.

To his surprise, though, the thief didn’t put up much of a fuss. He just looked at him for a short moment, before stepping forward. He pried Shuichi's hand open slightly, looking at his fingers for a moment as if trying to guess which one opened his phone.

…His touch was surprisingly light. Like he was trying to perform the action without Shuichi noticing. Except it was kind of hard not to notice because the thief's hands were weirdly cold, considering he probably had better circulation than Shuichi's own rope bound hands did right now. Well, maybe Shuichi's hands were just weirdly warm all the time. He thought maybe he had a hazy memory of Kaede telling him they were in highschool. Except Kaede was a bit anemic, so she was probably not a good authority on typical thermoregulation.

The thief seemed to give up the guessing game after a half a second, just placing the phone in Shuichi's hand.

It was a little trouble getting his phone open with his wrists bound, but Shuichi managed to get a good hold on it and touch his finger to the sensor.

The first thing he was greeted with as his phone screen lit up was a wall of email notifications. From the Towa City Hall of Records. As Shuichi tried to scroll past them to find the missed call notification, he realized that the subject of every message read “ACCESS REQUEST DENIED.”

All of them. Every single one. Related to Shirogane’s case, Maki’s, or otherwise… even files he had been granted access to before and just wanted to double check.

Shuichi numbly double tapped on one of the notifications.

His eyes were drawn to one line.

_REASON LISTED FOR DENIAL: Requestee has been classified as unauthorized personnel by one or more Administrators._

Oh…

Shuichi wondered if this had anything to do with the fact that he was on red notice…

"Jeez!" The thief exclaimed, suddenly snatching the phone from Shuichi to try and navigate to the redial button himself. "It's almost like you _want_ your serial killer bff to save you from totally being murdered by me. How ridiculous is that?"

Shuichi frowned, turning to the thief with a defense of Maki on his lips.

Then he saw the thief's face.

And Shuichi's brain put everything else on pause to take in the information he saw there.

The roundness of his jaw and cheeks, the hair that fell over his eyes and framed everything just so. Shuichi recognized them from the police sketch he had saved in his phone.

But the rest of his face didn't line up exactly with Shuichi's memory of it. The features were just a little sharper than he remembered. The curved lines of the end of his nose and brow and cheeks stuck out just a little bit more. The bags under his eyes were deeper.

He looked… tired. A little scared, maybe.

… 

Scared? 

Shuichi was baffled by his own deduction. There was nothing startled or tense about the thief's expression. It, in fact, seemed expertly and carefully relaxed. Completely neutral.

But Shuichi realized that he thought the thief was scared. That there was just something slightly off about him.

…

Oh.

He… didn't look like he was having fun, did he.

That was another about the thief that a police sketch could never capture about him.

That manic sparkle that always lay just behind the eyes, if you looked hard enough.

And without it…

Well. It was weird because Shuichi was sort of the master of having intrusive thoughts about all the possible ways he could die at any given moment, but…

He couldn't really imagine this guy killing him.

"Wait." He said suddenly. The thief looked up at him. "Whatever script you're writing- just make sure the first word I say is Maki. No hello, or anything, just Maki."

The thief gave him a flat look. "Explain." He prompted.

"It's a code word, basically." Shuichi said quickly, "If I don't say her name first thing, she knows that I'm in trouble."

The thief had that blank expression on still, looking at Shuichi for a moment. Then he leaned his head back ninety degrees. "Ughhhhghhh." The thief broke his neutral expression with a whine. "Why are you so smart and so stupid at the same time?"

Shuichi blinked at him. "Uh. Sorry. It's a preventative measure for abductions when I'm working on-"

"Obviously!" The thief seemed to get impatient with him. "But how am I supposed to know if this codeword of yours isn't actually a codeword to signal your distress? And why would you tell me that if it wasn't, given that you have, in fact, been abducted. The uncertainty is so dull it's stressing me out…"

"Well, I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to trust me on this one." Shuichi snapped a bit impatiently. "I don't want to impose on Maki's time any longer than I already have."

The thief looked at him for another, tense moment.

Shuichi looked at him back, right in the eyes.

"Fine, fine, just call her already." The thief broke first, shoving the phone back into Shuichi's hands as if he wanted to be done with it. 

On the screen it seemed as though he had managed to navigate to Shuichi's call history in the time they had been talking.

"Saying her name at the start of the call… That's so lame." The thief muttered as Shuichi hit the redial button. "So subtle you can barely tell it's a code word. I woulda picked something cool and unique, like Jabberwocky." While he was talking, he was also typing on his own phone.

Shuichi didn't have time to ask if his "script" was ready, because Maki picked up the phone almost immediately.

"Who is this.” She demanded to know as soon as the line connected.

“Maki!” Shuichi exclaimed quickly, “Yeah, uh, its just me. Sorry it took me so long to get to the phone, I didn’t mean to make you worry, I was just-” Shuichi was going to say ‘texting Kaede,’ but the thief nudged him and Shuichi realized that the man had typed out a different excuse on his phone. “-working on a file and my phone was charging in another room.”

There was a tense beat of silence where Shuichi had the space to worry that she had already gotten to his house and knew he was lying.

“... Idiot.” Maki seemed annoyed, but all of the concern seemed to have faded from her voice. “You knew I was going to call you.”

The thief had typed a new line for Shuichi while she spoke and as Shuichi read it, he found it bizarre, firstly because the thief had typed it so fast with only his right thumb, and secondly because it was almost exactly what Shuichi was going to say anyway.

“I know, I’m sorry.” He read the words in what he hoped was a normal tone of voice. “I’m fine though, I don’t want you to worry unnecessarily. What about you? How are you doing?”

Was the thief trying to collect information about Maki, or did he just guess accurately that that was what Shuichi would have said if he were home right now?

“Well, I would say that just now I _was_ worried unnecessarily.” Maki quipped. “I was just about to get in my car and start a search party for your sorry ass.”

“Uh. Sorry.” The thief had even typed in an ‘uh’ here, which was kind of crazy. Had he really been paying that much attention to Shuichi’s speech patterns? And then this next line was only half a sentence… Was the thief going to finish it while Shuichi was speaking? “We don’t have to keep doing-”

“No, no.” Maki cut him off right where the thief had stopped typing. “We should keep doing the check up calls. They're good for my peace of mind. It’s better for you to pick up the phone a little late than for me to make the call too late.”

Now, the thief had typed out, ‘or for me to call you while I’m being abducted, haha,’ but Shuichi was not going to say that, so he just said, “Haha, yeah, I guess so.”

The thief made a face at him and Shuichi made a face back.

“Okay,” Shuichi heard a sound that might’ve been a door closing on Maki’s end. “I’m going to-”

“Makirolllll!!!” There were some more impact noises following Kaito’s exclamation. Shuichi recognized Maki’s ‘I’m being hugged’ grumbling as the phone got knocked around a bit.

“Shuichi, I gotta go.” Maki said. “I’m being assaulted.”

“Yeah, okay.” Shuichi replied without waiting for further prompting from the thief. “Say hi to Kaito for me.”

“No.” Maki said. “Go to bed.”

Then she hung up.

The thief took Shuichi’s phone and pressed the end call button.

He made some sort of remark about the call, and maybe laughed or something… but Shuichi wasn’t really paying attention.

He was… thinking something through.

“Hey… were you serious?” Shuichi asked, although honestly not that hopeful for a straightforward answer. “I mean… about joining DICE- pursuing the Holy Salvation Society- you being personally involved in- I mean, just, any of it, really…”

“What, you asking for a friend?” The thief spoke quickly as if the question were rhetorical, but once more Shuichi noted his expression didn’t seem humored by the words they exchanged.

“... Yes, actually.” Shuichi replied honestly, half speaking to himself. Obviously his reservations about this were innumerable, but he just… He needed to convince himself. For Maki. Under normal circumstances he definitely wouldn’t consider doing this at all, but… with this plan he could keep an eye on all of his leads at once… and figuring out who was behind the Holy Salvation Society was more important than any moral quandaries he would have about violating a bureaucratically enforced information vacuum-

“Spit it out, Saihara.” The thief prompted him. And when Shuichi looked up at him one more time, he realized that something had changed in the man’s eyes. Something that… that made him feel hopeful, rather than resigned to this idea.

“We should team up.” Shuichi finally decided. "To break into the Towa City Hall of Records.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W: Poor sleep habits that are glossed over narratively without being addressed, assassins, murders, kidnappings, etc., cult mention, child abandonment mention, parental figure, obfuscation in adult parent-child relationship, economic hardship, economic trauma, guilt, maladjusted coping mechanism for anxiety disorder, police mention, gun mention, description of the inside parts of your neck, lying. Lmk if you need something tagged.
> 
> Hehe I think this chapter is really funny personally :) Just, like, oh. This is the one where Shuichi accepts that he's going to die but actually if you reread it with the mental image of Kokichi holding a water gun to his head its like... haha...
> 
> Thanks everyone who has been reading! And also rereading I think?? It's weird because I'll notice the hits go up on my little AO3 chart but I don't know if it's anyone new and I'm like... are people actually reading this, or just checking for updates? Who knows! If you are rereading, don't be shy about leaving comments about it, haha. Or comments on new chapters either, I guess. Idek I just really love reading comments and people who take the time to leave them are like my favorite people in the world 🥺
> 
> Also! It has been a month since I last updated, but I wanted to assure you guys that things are different from the last break I took! I was depressed and burned out towards the end of summer, but the time it took me to put out this chapter has mostly been because this arc has a lot of, like, mystery and character arc elements that I have to plan out way in advance and make sure all the timelines match up so I've been writing basically every week, just mostly working on stuff y'all don't get to see yet.


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